The Courage to Keep Going – Dr. Charles Stanley
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The Courage to Keep Going
Dear Lord,
Today…….I am asking all my prayer warriors to say a prayer that may help others. So many people are hurting right now. Many are struggling with finances and need jobs. Some are facing foreclosure and don’t even know how they are going to make it from week to week..
Many are lonely. . Many are heartbroken. . Many are facing sickness and health is fading. . Some are dealing with difficult family members. Many have lost HOPE.. Tonight, let us put our prayers and faith together decree and declare breakthrough over our families. Financial miracles WILL take place. Jobs WILL be found. Our Bodies WILL be made whole & sickness WILL flee. Marriages and relationships WILL be restored. Family members WILL find Jesus. Heartbreaks WILL be healed. JOY WILL be restored and HOPE WILL be found. In Jesus Name. Amen!!!!!! Keep God First…….
Listen now to this message from Charles F. Stanley, “The Courage to Keep Going”:
How do you respond when you find yourself dealing with situations that are very painful?
In fact, you get rejected, somebody walks out on you.
You feel like they were dishonest with you, they didn’t tell you the truth.
You feel lonely, you feel hurt, very discouraged.
When you think about all the things that happen to people and the reactions we have.
How do you, how do you feel? You just wanna say, you know what?
I don’t have to put up with this anymore and you just decide I’m gonna, I’m gonna walk away.
I quit. I give up. I don’t have to do this. I don’t have to stay here.
How do you really and truly feel?
Because you see as a follower of Jesus Christ giving up is not who we are.
Surrendering is not who we are throwing in the towel. As we say, that’s not who we are.
As a follower of Jesus Christ, we have the right to expect the best from him.
He has the right to expect the best from us.
And so when I think about giving up, that just, it doesn’t fit who we are.
And if you’re in the process right now, giving up on your marriage, giving up on your job, giving up on your Children, giving up on your financial situation, whatever the situation may be before you give up, you stop and ask yourself the question.
Does this fit who I am as a follower of Jesus?
And this message is all about listen, it’s all about keeping on, keeping on and that is to have the courage to keep on keeping on.
And if you will listen carefully and apply these points that I’m gonna lay out before you, you don’t have to give up and quit.
There is an answer and a solution to what God wants to do in your life at this point no matter what it is.
So I want you to turn if you will to second Timothy.
And this fourth chapter and uh Paul is writing to the young pastor Timothy and giving him some wonderful advice.
He’s coming to the end of his life.
Now, in fact, um uh Paul dies around 67 ad he’s uh killed by Nero the emperor.
And it’s interesting that the very next year Nero committed suicide.
And so he’s encouraging uh Timothy at this point.
And beginning in chapter four and verse one, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is the judge that living in the dead and by his appearing in his kingdom preach the word, be ready to listen, be ready in season and out of season reprove, rebuke exhort with great patience and instruction.
But the time will come when they will not endure a sound doctrine.
But wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves.
Teachers in accordance to their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn to myths.
But you be sober in all things and do a hardship, do the work of an evangelist fulfill your ministry for I am already being poured out as a drink offering.
And the time of my departure has come, I have fought a good fight. I’ve finished the course.
I’ve kept the faith in the future.
There is later for me, the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that day and not only to me but also to all who love his appearing.
And this is his challenge to young Timothy.
Uh as I said, he, he is a young pastor and now uh we find him listening to the Apostle Paul, give him a warning and a challenge and a word of encouragement that no matter what he goes through, you don’t give up and you don’t quit.
And as I think about all the characters of the New Testament, for example, no one fits the qualification of the one who never quits like the apostle Paul.
When you think about his life and think about uh how he lived it out here’s someone who’s stayed with the challenge no matter what happened.
And you may be one of those persons today who wants to quit and you think you have a pretty good reason to quit and you have a good reason to walk out.
You may legitimately and reasonably think, well, I don’t have to do this and I don’t have to stay here.
And I think of many pastors that I’ve talked with over the years who’ve said this is what’s going on in my church.
And I decided I don’t have to put up with this. I don’t have to keep doing this.
I don’t have to live like this. I don’t like to have my family treated this way.
I, I don’t, I don’t have to do it.
And when they ask me what I think here’s what I, here’s what I tell them. Yes, you do.
You have to do what you’re doing until God tells you to do something else. And Paul is encouraging Timothy.
He says, look, there’s gonna come a day when they’re not going to believe what you’re saying.
They want someone to tickle their ears to make them feel good.
But you stay steady, steady, sober, calm in the situation, you keep doing what God has called you to do and then he talks about his own life because of what he’s been through in life.
Now, when I think about what Paul suffered in life, you have to ask the question, what motivated him to keep on keeping on when everything in him would have said quit.
But there is something that Paul knew something that he did that every single one of us need to understand in our life because we are all gonna be tested or have been tested once so many times to just say, you know what?
I don’t have to put up with this. I quit. I give up, I walk away. Now.
The tragedy is that many people use that same phrase when they walk away from their marriage, from their Children or into the college education.
Say, you know what I quit there, some particular job they don’t like because they think it’s a little too difficult or it doesn’t suit them quitters.
There are plenty of quitters and yet quitters don’t get anywhere in life.
People who give up don’t get anywhere in life.
So I want us to look at the reasons the motivations that Paul had to keep going when the going got very rough and we’ll talk about some of those issues.
So, uh, the first one I want us to notice here is this one of the things that kept Paul from giving up and kept him, keeping on keeping on was the awareness that God was with him.
And I think in the second, uh, Corinthian letter and the 11th chapter, this is a very challenging chapter to me when I think about what Paul went through what he suffered and yet he never gave up no matter what he experienced in life.
So if you look at the 11th chapter for a moment, this is a familiar chapter to most Christians, but a lot of people who hear this will not be.
But Paul says, for example, he was arguing and they were criticizing him for who he was.
And he said um in uh verse 22 are they Hebrews? So am I are they Israelites?
So am I, are they descendants of Abraham? So am I then he says, are they servants of Christ?
I speak as if insane. I’m more in far more labors and far more imprisonments, beaten times.
Listen without number often in danger of death. Five times, I received from the Jews 39 lashes three times.
I was beaten with rods once I was stoned three times. I was shipwrecked a night and day.
I have spent in the deep, I’ve been on frequent journeys and dangers from rivers, dangers from robs, dangers from countrymen, dangers from the gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers from among false brethren.
I’ve been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights and hunger and thirst often without food and cold and exposure.
Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.
If you and I had been what he’d been through. I wonder how many of us would have survived that?
And so what is it that made it possible for him to survive that?
Now he was listen, he had a lot of reasons to give up and quit. But he did not why?
Because of his awareness that Almighty God was with him.
And when I think about the, the things that so many things that the Apostle Paul said about God’s presence with him, he said, for example, in acts 23 he’s going through a difficult time.
He says, the Lord stood by him. He knew, he knew the Lord was with him.
The Lord stood by him and he said to him on another occasion, don’t be afraid I am with you.
And so all through Paul’s epistles, we are continually reminded that God is with us.
If I should ask you, if you believe God is with you, you probably say yes.
But do you claim that when times are tough?
Do you remind yourself that no matter what’s going on who’s treating me this way? Almighty God is with me?
He said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.
Now, either I have to believe God will do what he says he’ll do or I don’t, if I begin to question him, I’ll begin to consider giving up in some situations.
If I believe what he says is true and that He’s true to His word, I’ll not give up no matter what’s going on.
And often times we give up watch this.
Often times people give up right before victory is about to break loose.
Right before opportunity stares them in the face. They’re willing to give up.
People are willing to give up right before there can be a conciliation right before things can change.
They want to give up. That’s why it’s dangerous to ever give up because when we give up in a situation, we’re giving up on God.
He says, I’ll never leave you nor forsake you.
As long as you and I are walking in his will and his way.
It doesn’t make any difference how tough it gets. If we don’t give up, we’re gonna be rewarded.
Think about this. He says ship wrecked all these times, a day and a night in the sea and over and over and over again.
The Jews tried their best to kill him. They tried to trap him, they tried to kill him.
They did everything imaginable to get rid of him and yet you find him in jail, rejoicing in the Lord and praising God for what he’s doing in his life.
You know why? Because Paul never felt listen, he never felt rejected by Jesus or that Jesus Christ was absent in any situation that he was in, the awareness of his presence will take you through things that nothing else will.
A second thing is this, he the experience of, of God’s strength within him whenever you feel weak.
And you see when we feel weak and worn and then these things hit us, we are more prone to give in to them and to give up.
He talked about the strength that was in him.
And when you think about all these experiences that he survived, he had to understand and experience the strength of Almighty God.
Three shipwrecks beaten all of these many times jailed. There was he was a frequent visitor to the jail.
And so all of these things he’s experiencing, how did he experience it?
He had strength, but he was not necessarily a strong man, physically, probably a little short fellow.
And sometimes uh the evidence is that his eyesight wasn’t all that good, but he had strength.
And what was that strength? The same strength that you and I have to go through any situation we face in life.
And that is the strength of Almighty God.
Now most of us know the verse when Paul said in Philippians, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Listen, he was aware of God’s presence and being aware of God’s presence.
He was aware of the strength that God released in Him, in that awareness of His presence, no matter what you’re going through, what you’re facing.
You have the strength of God within you because you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you.
And that’s what Jesus promises disciples. He knew that they were gonna be tempted to give up.
He knew they were gonna go through times that would seem impossible.
And he said, the Holy Spirit will be in you with you and upon you and he will empower you, strengthen you to do whatever the Father called you to do.
Every single one of us has within us, adequate strength to do the will of God.
You may say, well, I don’t feel like I do.
You may not feel like it, but the truth is, are you claiming it?
And you can have, you can have spiritual gifts and spiritual blessings.
If you don’t claim them, you don’t understand them. And if you don’t understand them, you can experience them.
And so one of the things that kept the apostle Paul from giving up, keep on keeping on was he experienced the strength of almighty God in his life when he stood in councils and they criticized him and wanted to crucify him.
If possible everything they did, he never gave up, he never quit.
Now, did that mean that he, that he always just stood like a man?
I’m sure there were times when he was frightened for the moment and this is why the Lord would say to him.
Uh Here I am beside you, I’m gonna be with you in this no matter what you, what you’re going through.
And so when I think about his prayer, for example, for their visions, uh he was encouraging them to pray for the strength that God in that third chapter, the strength that God would give them for what he called them to do.
And then when he talks about putting on the spiritual armor, how does he start that?
In the sixth chapter of visions? He says, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.
And then he tells us even before he gets to the karma, which he talks about a hell of salvation to protect our mind, the breast of righteous, to protect our emotions.
And this girl of truth. So we’ll always stand in the truth.
And he talks about uh the uh sandals of salvation, always ready to go.
And then he talks about the sword of the spirit, the word of God.
And then above all else, he says, and above all else, the shield of faith, he starts out saying, be strong in the Lord and the power of his might.
That’s what you and I should start every day with the awareness that God is with us today and that we have the strength of God to face anything and everything and anybody and everybody, no matter what the situation is because listen, it isn’t our strength.
It’s his strength. If they go on my strength or your strength, some days we wouldn’t get up.
But it’s the strength of the Lord that is, it’s watch this. It’s the divine energy of God.
It’s the power of Almighty God within us.
And that doesn’t mean you won’t have difficult situations and circumstances, but he will enable us to live through it no matter what.
And so what kept him from giving up when he had so many reasons to give up was his awareness of God’s presence.
You and I need the same when likewise the same thing with Him.
And that is we have the right to experience the strength of God.
You have the Holy Spirit living within you that is you have God on the inside and he’s watch this.
He’s not gonna call you, watch this carefully.
He’s not gonna call you to do anything, face anything, experience anything without Him giving you the strength to do it.
He says he causes all things to work together for good to those who love him, to those who call the court on this purpose.
And sometimes He allows us to get in situations we think, oh God, I don’t know that I can handle this.
Why does he allow some of those things?
Because it gives him the opportunity to show us how real He is, how faithful He is, how powerful He is and how adequate you and I are when we put our trust in Him.
And that’s what, that’s what Paul is, is saying here in these passages.
Then of course, somebody says, well, now, uh how am I gonna, how am I gonna have that kind of courage?
Well, two things. And I said, every single Sunday on purpose.
If you’re gonna have courage in your life, and you’re gonna understand that God is working in your life, you got to be in the word.
Th th this is, this is the mind of God, this is the heart of God.
This is the spirit of God. Here’s, here’s where we find all the gifts of God.
What God is up to in their life.
If I neglect the word of God and neglect spending time with Him, I’m not gonna be strong.
It’s the word of God because as I read what he says, when I read, listen, going through some difficult time and thinking God forget it.
And I come to this verse, he says, God causes all these things to work together for good because I have called you.
Then I can, I don’t have to give up why I know that whatever I’m facing is tough as it is my God because He’s always truthly.
He’s gonna turn it for my good.
There’s some things I cannot figure out how God turns for good, but he does. He did listen.
He never said, understand me. He said, trust me, just trust me and that is the key.
And the apostle Paul certainly knew what he was doing in his relationship to God.
He didn’t give up, he didn’t quit. He just kept moving along, trusting him.
Then of course, the assurance of his will for us.
There’s nothing that’s more reassuring to keep us from giving up than knowing that we’re in the will of God.
And this doesn’t mean that you have to be preaching the gospel somewhere, but whatever God’s will is at this point in your life, you don’t give up, you don’t quit.
And he said, for example, he knew where he was when he faced all of these situations.
He says, he says, the father sent me to preach the gospel, not necessarily to baptize but to preach the gospel.
And he said, for example, in the 13th chapter of Acts, uh he gives us uh in that uh 47th verse, uh he says, assuring us that he knows what God has called to do.
Uh He says, for example, that God said to Him, I’ve placed you as a light for the gentiles that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.
Paul knew exactly where He was in life. Once he was saved, he knew exactly what God was up to.
He said, God says, I’ve called you to preach the gospel.
And I have, I have made you a light to the gentiles because first of all, the gospel was only being preached to the Jews.
And so because of the way they treated him and because they rejected him, he just brushed it off of, of his clothes and said, I’m going to the gentiles because that’s exactly what God intended for Him to do.
So the issue is this, if I’m gonna be able to keep on keeping on, I’ve got to know that I’m, I’m doing what God says.
Do how God says, do it when God says do it and where he says, do it, I don’t even have to understand why it’s always good to understand why not most of the time we will.
But if, if you want, if you want to have the strength that you don’t give up and you don’t quit and remember what I said, how many times people give up and quit right before the blessing, right before God opens the door, they walk away from the opportunity, right before God settles an issue in a marriage, oftentimes somebody walks away.
And so that gives up all pop all possibility of renewing that marriage.
You can just go through illustration after illustration, you don’t give up because you may give up at the very time when the best that you’re looking for is there waiting for you.
And the Apostle Paul knew that he understood he was in the will of the father.
And, and for example, wherever he went, God was there guiding him and lead him.
He was uh on the second missionary journey.
He was about to go um east and preaching the gospel and the spirit of God said, I want you to go west if he had gone east, you and I would not be where we are today.
But he, but the spirit of God spoke to him.
And then likewise, when the Lord spoke to him made it very clear where he was.
He gave us the same promises. Listen, Paul doesn’t have the same.
Paul didn’t have a single promise we don’t have. And remember this, Paul didn’t have the New Testament.
He had the Old Testament and then he had the sayings of Jesus, but he didn’t have it down like you and I have it on the printed page.
And so when I come to this question of what God is up to, here’s a, here’s a verse I always come back to in Psalm 32 8.
He says, I will teach you in the way which you should go.
I will guide you with my eye upon you.
He didn’t say I’d make it easy, but he said, I will teach you in the way you should go.
You don’t have to give up and quit. You don’t have to wanna know what’s going on.
I’ll show you that. And then in Proverbs 35 and six, he says, trust in the Lord with all your heart lay not to your own understanding.
You may not understand it in all your ways. Acknowledge Him. He says, I’ll direct your path.
We don’t have to give up and we don’t have to quit and we don’t have to wonder what to do.
God has already assured us of His guidance and direction.
Then the overflow, the overflowing joy that fills us, for example.
And the Apostle Paul is such a beautiful example of that because the uh the book of Philippians, for example, is all about joy.
And here he is in jail. Not, doesn’t have very long to live. And uh what is he talking about?
He’s talking about joy. He starts off talking about uh where he is and what’s happening in jail.
And that uh he says, I want you to know Brean, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel.
And how is that true? Because all the, all the guards that came in to guard him, he just shared the gospel with them.
And so one after the other.
And so he said, before long, the whole guard uh knew that he was there and it heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And you find, you find this sense of joy throughout Paul’s writings. And he says, rejoice.
And again, I say rejoice, he comes to the fourth chapter and he’s still rejoicing and he’s still in prison.
Why? Because he knew the father was with him.
He knew that he was doing the father’s will and he knew that he was following God’s plan and purpose for his life.
Had it been tough. It had been by the time he got to this place, he’d had 1000 reasons to give up and quit, wouldn’t think about quitting.
Why? For the simple reason, he knew that he was doing what the father had called him to do.
So I would simply ask you this. Um Do you, do you rejoice?
He said, what do you mean by? I mean, do you have any happy moments when things are tough?
Can you just say thank you, Jesus? Praise the Lord. I just wanna bless your holy name.
Can you rejoice in the Lord when things are tough? Or do you say God?
Why do you let this happen to me? Father? Why, why don’t you answer my prayer?
In other words, you know, you and I can argue with God and that doesn’t.
So somebody says, well, God must get angry. No, he doesn’t. He realizes we’re just human.
We make mistakes and he realizes of things we don’t understand.
But you know, I’m over here and um I’m wondering why things the way they are over here and God’s over here.
And he says, look, when you get over here, you just wait, you’re gonna be so glad you didn’t jump off the table.
You here you are. And I’ve been waiting for you because I have the best for you. Listen to this.
God has the best for his Children. Anything less than that, anything less than that is not of God.
Now, that doesn’t mean there won’t be difficult to hardship and trial for us just like there was for the Apostle Paul, but he’s going to turn it for our good.
If we respond in the proper fashion. So this is why he could rejoice even in jail.
And even in his message, he’s telling them to rejoice, even he’s close to death and knows that he is and he’s talking about rejoicing in the Lord.
Then of course, the life changing lessons that God teaches us.
You think about how much truth, you know, you know, if you just come to church Sunday after Sunday after Sunday and you take notes week after week after week.
And uh in the first service, two uh people came down the aisle, one of them said, I’ve been watching in touch for 24 years.
I said 27 years and taking notes. I think about how much truth I know they’ve heard.
If they’ve listened, they’ve heard truth, that truth, that the truth, that the truth after truth, that truth, that truth, that truth.
And this is why I said to you write it down, write it down, write it down.
But the Apostle Paul, he was an awesome student of the Word of God.
And on one occasion, it says, for example, he had been saved very long.
He went to, instead of going to Jerusalem and talking to the apostles, he went to Arabia to get by himself so that God could teach him the truth.
And when you think for a moment, if we didn’t have the epistles of the, of Paul, what we, we know about sanctification, salvation, uh substitution or death of Jesus, the atoning death of Jesus.
However, what we know about, uh, declared righteous before almighty God, all the doctrinal things that we believe.
We wouldn’t know it if the Apostle Paul had not lived, it did not give up, kept going and kept learning and learning and learning and teaching in those days.
And so much of what, what, what he has written to us, he wrote from a jail cell.
I mean, when I think about having been through all that instead of sitting in a jail moping about how difficult things are and oftentimes his followers, uh uh supposedly his followers would be outside the jail, criticizing him when he’s in the jail doing what the will of God it was for his life.
And so you can, you can have a morbid moping attitude or you can rejoice in the Lord always no matter what’s going on.
So let me ask you a question. Have you ever been in trouble? And God said, do it yourself?
Has he ever said I’m leaving you? I, I’m gonna let you handle it.
You, you, you take care of it.
I’m I’m finished with you moping and groaning and griping and, and uh wondering where I am.
No, he just lets us mope and groan and whatever it might be.
Then when we get serious enough to get right with him, what does he do?
He always comes through and we understand that old song says we understand it better by and by.
God loves you. He wants the best for you.
And when I think about why people give up, they give up because they don’t know Him, they give up because they don’t believe Him, they don’t trust him.
They feel hopeless. Instead of thinking my hope is in Christ and Christ alone, my hope is built on nothing less but Jesus Christ and his righteousness.
You know, when people say, well, things are just not going my way. Ask yourself this question.
If things aren’t going your way before you give up and quit, ask yourself this question.
I wonder if things are going God’s way and I’m out of His will.
I don’t understand it and he’s up to something I’m not aware of.
It just may be that what you’re going through, this is difficult and tough and you wanna quit and give up is the very thing God is using to draw you to himself cause you to cling to Him, open your eyes, help you to see who He is and what he’s up to in your life and teach you to apply the truth.
All of us know more truth than we probably apply.
So I would ask you this when you take notes, for example, on Sunday morning and you go and put those notes somewhere.
I hope you put them all in the same place.
But do you ever pull him out during the week? Do you ever hear anything?
I know you do. Do you ever hear anything uh on Sunday that during the week you think?
Oh God, I needed that. Where, where are your notes? Are you fumbling around?
Trying to figure out where they are? The Apostle Paul? Listen, he loved what God taught him.
And so in jail instead of moping around and having a pity party. What’s he doing?
He’s thinking about you and me now he doesn’t know. 2000 years later, we’re gonna hear this and see it.
But what is he doing? God is leading him to write down what God is teaching him and what he’s experiencing in a cold Roman jail cell.
He could just be complaining. But listen, he didn’t give up, he didn’t quit and he didn’t have words to say about Nero and all the rest of them.
He listen, he applied what he knew where he was, what he had to apply.
And all that those who followed him would know the truth.
I say about Apostle Paul Hallelujah, praise God that he didn’t give up and quit and, and that he, he wrote it down.
So you and I have it to live by then.
Of course, the fruit His truth has produced through him.
He said, for example, on his missionary journeys, the churches were growing, one thing, the churches were growing and they were, they were increasing in membership all the time.
And if you’ll think about it he wrote these epistles to these churches, to Corinth, the, to the Galatians, to the Romans and so forth.
And uh if you turn to the book of Corinthians and you just read that book, uh that was no pastor would want to be the pastor of the first Baptist church in Corinth or any Corinthian church.
That, that was a terrible crowd. They were, they were guilty of about everything you can think of.
And if you read the book of Corinthians, it’s all about his correcting this sin and that sin and the other.
Did he give up? No.
And think about this when he would establish a church and leave a few people, then he’d come back around the 2nd 3rd mission of journeys.
Sometimes when he came back, they were just in a mess.
They let false teachers come in and um they didn’t know what they believed sometime and they fuss and fought just like people do today.
At some point. You think Paul would say, you know what enough of this?
I’ve three missionary journeys and y’all still acting like this and yet the gospel survived.
And 2000 years later, we are worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ and sending missionaries all over the world preaching and teaching the word of God.
And our names are written in the lamb’s book of Life.
And you and I are eternally secure because of the gospel.
So we’re encouraged by what he wrote and what he suffered. Then for example, the award he’s promised us.
One of the reasons that we should never give up is thinking about what God has provided for us.
And if you’ll notice in this passage, we read a few moments ago to second Timothy.
Uh he said to uh Timothy in the future, there is laid up for me, the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that day and not only to me but to all who love his appearing.
Paul knew he had an awesome reward coming. And you say, well, I don’t think I have any.
Well, let me ask you a question.
You raise your Children to be Godly big reward, love your husband or your wife. Reward.
You do your best reward, do your best in school.
Reward, share your faith reward, stand up for the truth. Reward. Give to the Lord’s work, right?
We just go on and on and on the 1000 ways. God can reward his Children.
And you see, there’s not a single legitimate reason for a child of God to give up and quit and throw in the towel.
Listen, you have God on your side. He’s not only on your side. He’s living within you.
He’s promised to be there. He’s promised to be with you always and he’s promised to enable you, help you strengthen you and encourage you in every circumstance of life.
So when people say, well, you know if you just understood what I was going through.
Well, maybe I do. Maybe I don’t, I know somebody who does and that’s God and God understood whatever you’re going through before you ever started going through it and listen, he’s ready and willing to equip you so that you won’t give up right before the best happens in your life.
And the reason I repeat that is because I’ve seen that so many times in so many different ways in people’s lives.
And I’ve seen it in my own life when I think, oh God, and right before I think Lord, I can’t handle any more of this.
The Lord open some awesome door and I thank him and thank him and thank him that he didn’t let me give up and quit because he never intended for us to do that.
So I’m saying to you because God is saying to you whatever you are facing in life at this moment, no matter how difficult it is, how tough it is, how discouraging it is and all the reasons and the evidence you have for walking away and all, all the, all the proof that you have that things are wrong.
Remember, there is a God in heaven and if you’re saved, he’s living within you and that God will take you through whatever you’re facing in life, no matter what you don’t give, listen, watch this.
You say, well, I’m giving up, I’m giving up on my job. I’m giving up on this.
I’m no, you’re giving up on God as a follower of Jesus.
When you give up, you’re giving up on Him, your boss or your marriage, somebody else can’t do for you.
You’re giving up on God. You don’t give up on the Supreme.
Listen, the supreme power in the whole universe, you don’t give up on it.
And the one who loves you enough to have given his son to die on the cross, you don’t give up on him.
So remember who you were giving up on? And when you do, you won’t give up.
Well, I think also the vision of the cross always before us. That’s what Paul said.
The vision of the cross always before him.
And he makes an awesome statement uh in this six chapter of Galatians.
And um when you listen to what he says here, and you look at the life that he lived and uh here’s what he says, he says in the 14th verse.
But may it never be that I would boast except that one thing he says, except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and out to the world.
He said the cross has made it possible for me to survive in it and everything because it is at the cross.
The ating death of Jesus Christ purchased our salvation at the cross.
The atoning death of Jesus Christ purchased everything we have.
It’s the atoning death of Jesus Christ that shed his blood that makes our forgiveness a living reality.
Jesus didn’t give up. He didn’t quit though.
He must have in the flesh at times, been discouraged but not in the spirit. You know why?
Because he and the father were absolutely one and he knew that nothing could conquer him because he was God in the human flesh.
You don’t give up, you don’t quit.
And around this today, there are lots of people who wanna give up.
There are lots of people who wanna quit and they can give you some, some rather um shall we say a good reasons from their perspective?
Why they should walk away from a situation of why they should quit but not in God’s viewpoint.
He has the best for us and he’s willing to give us the best, but he doesn’t bless quitters.
It won’t happen. Christ sacrificed his life for our salvation.
And when I look at the scriptures and see what Jesus did, he didn’t give up.
I can’t give up Apostle Paul didn’t give up. We can’t give up. And here’s the issue.
He will reward us for not giving up.
The reward may not come to, to glory or you may be rewarded today or tomorrow or next week or next month or next year.
He doesn’t overlook our obedience, our faithfulness, our loyalty, our devotion and to our keep on keeping on.
Then of course, naturally, our love and devotion to Jesus Christ that should keep us keeping on no matter what.
And uh Paul said in a beautiful way in Philippians, he said for me to live is for Christ to live, for me to die is my gain.
So think about that. Isn’t that really what you and I want for our life that we want to live the kind of life that when people meet us, it won’t take them long to hear Jesus in their voice.
It won’t take them long to see Christ in our actions.
It won’t take them long to feel the love that you and I feel for him.
He said for, to me to live is Christ.
That was his whole perception for, to me to live is Christ and he says not to die.
I I gained by that but for me to live is for Christ to live.
And so if I should ask you, do you love God? And that’s what you’d say you do.
Uh Do you love him enough to serve him? Oh, yes. Do you love him enough to suffer from him?
Well, uh it depends on what that is. No.
If we love him, we won’t give up, we won’t quit when the going gets rough when the suffering gets hard and the pain becomes intense, we don’t give up and we don’t quit.
We keep going because Jesus kept going.
The Apostle Paul kept going and the teaching of scripture is that you and I keep going likewise.
And Paul talks about he, he talks about God being rich in mercy and grace and love toward us.
And He is. And so many of God’s people oftentimes they want to give up and quit.
And I’m saying to you don’t give up and quit, ask God to give you wisdom and to give you strength to keep going.
And I can think of some people in my own mind and heart that been through very, very difficult times.
And I wondered how they made it through because they trusted God because they believed the very things that we talked about here, maybe didn’t think about them in that way.
But if you had asked them, do you think that God is with you? Yes.
Do you believe He’s listening to your prayers? Yes. Are you reading the word of God? Yes.
You could just go right down the line and all the things we’ve said, they would have said yes to.
And yet nobody ever laid it out as a principal, laid it out in an outline for them.
So let me ask you a question today.
What are you tempted to give up on?
What are you tempted to walk away from?
Are you willing to say to him?
Lord, I’m hanging in here no matter what because I know that if I’m in here, you’re in here with me by my side to see me through and once in a while I’ll put something in the back screen because I just want you to see it with your eyes.
I can say it. But look at this for a moment because here’s the reasons people give up and the way they give up, listen, because when they face situations, they face them fearfully afraid, hopelessly, they don’t see their way clear because they’re looking through the eyes of fear rebelliously.
They don’t like it. They don’t want it that way. And so what happens fearfully, hopelessly rebelliously?
Or you can look at those situations courageously.
And the next simple phrase I have up there is this, we make the choice, we make the choice of how we live through the difficult times in life.
And it’s my prayer that whoever you are, if you’ve never trusted Jesus Christ as your savior, I can tell you you’re not gonna make it.
You may say, well, I have so much money, you can lose it. You, I have great health.
You can lose that. I have a great family. You can lose that. You can lose anything and everything. Listen.
But if you’re saved by the grace of God, you can’t lose that. You can’t lose your salvation.
You can’t lose your relationship to almighty God.
And God has called us to trust Him as our savior through Jesus Christ, lay our life before him and allow him to live his life through us.
And to demonstrate to the world that Jesus Christ is who he says he is.
He will do what he says he’ll do and he’s more than capable of fulfilling that promise.
I would plead with you. Don’t walk away, don’t quit, don’t give up.
Don’t throw in the tail as people say, but just tell the Lord Lord, I’m gonna trust you to see me through this.
I don’t know how, but I’m gonna trust you because you said you will never leave me nor forsake me and God.
I believe you always tell the truth.
Father, how grateful we are that you have place within us, your very self and the person of the Holy Spirit to equip us to do anything and everything you would have us to do in such a way.
We don’t ever have to quit and give up.
We wanna keep on keeping on because that is the image that Jesus leaves us and the image of the apostle Paul and multitudes of saints who’s gone before us.
So I pray for any and every person here this morning who is feeling tempted to give up, who’s feeling tempted to quit, who’s feeling tempted to walk out, to walk away, to lay it down, to lay it aside, to turn around that you would remind them.
There are many reasons not to, there are many reasons to stay steady and calm as Paul would say to Timothy and to keep moving on and trusting you moment by moment and you said you will cause all the things that may tempt us and tries to quit to turn out for our good if we’ll trust you.
And we just wanna say thank you for that in Jesus name.
Amen.
In fact, you get rejected, somebody walks out on you.
You feel like they were dishonest with you, they didn’t tell you the truth.
You feel lonely, you feel hurt, very discouraged.
When you think about all the things that happen to people and the reactions we have.
How do you, how do you feel? You just wanna say, you know what?
I don’t have to put up with this anymore and you just decide I’m gonna, I’m gonna walk away.
I quit. I give up. I don’t have to do this. I don’t have to stay here.
How do you really and truly feel?
Because you see as a follower of Jesus Christ giving up is not who we are.
Surrendering is not who we are throwing in the towel. As we say, that’s not who we are.
As a follower of Jesus Christ, we have the right to expect the best from him.
He has the right to expect the best from us.
And so when I think about giving up, that just, it doesn’t fit who we are.
And if you’re in the process right now, giving up on your marriage, giving up on your job, giving up on your Children, giving up on your financial situation, whatever the situation may be before you give up, you stop and ask yourself the question.
Does this fit who I am as a follower of Jesus?
And this message is all about listen, it’s all about keeping on, keeping on and that is to have the courage to keep on keeping on.
And if you will listen carefully and apply these points that I’m gonna lay out before you, you don’t have to give up and quit.
There is an answer and a solution to what God wants to do in your life at this point no matter what it is.
So I want you to turn if you will to second Timothy.
And this fourth chapter and uh Paul is writing to the young pastor Timothy and giving him some wonderful advice.
He’s coming to the end of his life.
Now, in fact, um uh Paul dies around 67 ad he’s uh killed by Nero the emperor.
And it’s interesting that the very next year Nero committed suicide.
And so he’s encouraging uh Timothy at this point.
And beginning in chapter four and verse one, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is the judge that living in the dead and by his appearing in his kingdom preach the word, be ready to listen, be ready in season and out of season reprove, rebuke exhort with great patience and instruction.
But the time will come when they will not endure a sound doctrine.
But wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves.
Teachers in accordance to their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn to myths.
But you be sober in all things and do a hardship, do the work of an evangelist fulfill your ministry for I am already being poured out as a drink offering.
And the time of my departure has come, I have fought a good fight. I’ve finished the course.
I’ve kept the faith in the future.
There is later for me, the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that day and not only to me but also to all who love his appearing.
And this is his challenge to young Timothy.
Uh as I said, he, he is a young pastor and now uh we find him listening to the Apostle Paul, give him a warning and a challenge and a word of encouragement that no matter what he goes through, you don’t give up and you don’t quit.
And as I think about all the characters of the New Testament, for example, no one fits the qualification of the one who never quits like the apostle Paul.
When you think about his life and think about uh how he lived it out here’s someone who’s stayed with the challenge no matter what happened.
And you may be one of those persons today who wants to quit and you think you have a pretty good reason to quit and you have a good reason to walk out.
You may legitimately and reasonably think, well, I don’t have to do this and I don’t have to stay here.
And I think of many pastors that I’ve talked with over the years who’ve said this is what’s going on in my church.
And I decided I don’t have to put up with this. I don’t have to keep doing this.
I don’t have to live like this. I don’t like to have my family treated this way.
I, I don’t, I don’t have to do it.
And when they ask me what I think here’s what I, here’s what I tell them. Yes, you do.
You have to do what you’re doing until God tells you to do something else. And Paul is encouraging Timothy.
He says, look, there’s gonna come a day when they’re not going to believe what you’re saying.
They want someone to tickle their ears to make them feel good.
But you stay steady, steady, sober, calm in the situation, you keep doing what God has called you to do and then he talks about his own life because of what he’s been through in life.
Now, when I think about what Paul suffered in life, you have to ask the question, what motivated him to keep on keeping on when everything in him would have said quit.
But there is something that Paul knew something that he did that every single one of us need to understand in our life because we are all gonna be tested or have been tested once so many times to just say, you know what?
I don’t have to put up with this. I quit. I give up, I walk away. Now.
The tragedy is that many people use that same phrase when they walk away from their marriage, from their Children or into the college education.
Say, you know what I quit there, some particular job they don’t like because they think it’s a little too difficult or it doesn’t suit them quitters.
There are plenty of quitters and yet quitters don’t get anywhere in life.
People who give up don’t get anywhere in life.
So I want us to look at the reasons the motivations that Paul had to keep going when the going got very rough and we’ll talk about some of those issues.
So, uh, the first one I want us to notice here is this one of the things that kept Paul from giving up and kept him, keeping on keeping on was the awareness that God was with him.
And I think in the second, uh, Corinthian letter and the 11th chapter, this is a very challenging chapter to me when I think about what Paul went through what he suffered and yet he never gave up no matter what he experienced in life.
So if you look at the 11th chapter for a moment, this is a familiar chapter to most Christians, but a lot of people who hear this will not be.
But Paul says, for example, he was arguing and they were criticizing him for who he was.
And he said um in uh verse 22 are they Hebrews? So am I are they Israelites?
So am I, are they descendants of Abraham? So am I then he says, are they servants of Christ?
I speak as if insane. I’m more in far more labors and far more imprisonments, beaten times.
Listen without number often in danger of death. Five times, I received from the Jews 39 lashes three times.
I was beaten with rods once I was stoned three times. I was shipwrecked a night and day.
I have spent in the deep, I’ve been on frequent journeys and dangers from rivers, dangers from robs, dangers from countrymen, dangers from the gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers from among false brethren.
I’ve been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights and hunger and thirst often without food and cold and exposure.
Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.
If you and I had been what he’d been through. I wonder how many of us would have survived that?
And so what is it that made it possible for him to survive that?
Now he was listen, he had a lot of reasons to give up and quit. But he did not why?
Because of his awareness that Almighty God was with him.
And when I think about the, the things that so many things that the Apostle Paul said about God’s presence with him, he said, for example, in acts 23 he’s going through a difficult time.
He says, the Lord stood by him. He knew, he knew the Lord was with him.
The Lord stood by him and he said to him on another occasion, don’t be afraid I am with you.
And so all through Paul’s epistles, we are continually reminded that God is with us.
If I should ask you, if you believe God is with you, you probably say yes.
But do you claim that when times are tough?
Do you remind yourself that no matter what’s going on who’s treating me this way? Almighty God is with me?
He said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.
Now, either I have to believe God will do what he says he’ll do or I don’t, if I begin to question him, I’ll begin to consider giving up in some situations.
If I believe what he says is true and that He’s true to His word, I’ll not give up no matter what’s going on.
And often times we give up watch this.
Often times people give up right before victory is about to break loose.
Right before opportunity stares them in the face. They’re willing to give up.
People are willing to give up right before there can be a conciliation right before things can change.
They want to give up. That’s why it’s dangerous to ever give up because when we give up in a situation, we’re giving up on God.
He says, I’ll never leave you nor forsake you.
As long as you and I are walking in his will and his way.
It doesn’t make any difference how tough it gets. If we don’t give up, we’re gonna be rewarded.
Think about this. He says ship wrecked all these times, a day and a night in the sea and over and over and over again.
The Jews tried their best to kill him. They tried to trap him, they tried to kill him.
They did everything imaginable to get rid of him and yet you find him in jail, rejoicing in the Lord and praising God for what he’s doing in his life.
You know why? Because Paul never felt listen, he never felt rejected by Jesus or that Jesus Christ was absent in any situation that he was in, the awareness of his presence will take you through things that nothing else will.
A second thing is this, he the experience of, of God’s strength within him whenever you feel weak.
And you see when we feel weak and worn and then these things hit us, we are more prone to give in to them and to give up.
He talked about the strength that was in him.
And when you think about all these experiences that he survived, he had to understand and experience the strength of Almighty God.
Three shipwrecks beaten all of these many times jailed. There was he was a frequent visitor to the jail.
And so all of these things he’s experiencing, how did he experience it?
He had strength, but he was not necessarily a strong man, physically, probably a little short fellow.
And sometimes uh the evidence is that his eyesight wasn’t all that good, but he had strength.
And what was that strength? The same strength that you and I have to go through any situation we face in life.
And that is the strength of Almighty God.
Now most of us know the verse when Paul said in Philippians, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Listen, he was aware of God’s presence and being aware of God’s presence.
He was aware of the strength that God released in Him, in that awareness of His presence, no matter what you’re going through, what you’re facing.
You have the strength of God within you because you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you.
And that’s what Jesus promises disciples. He knew that they were gonna be tempted to give up.
He knew they were gonna go through times that would seem impossible.
And he said, the Holy Spirit will be in you with you and upon you and he will empower you, strengthen you to do whatever the Father called you to do.
Every single one of us has within us, adequate strength to do the will of God.
You may say, well, I don’t feel like I do.
You may not feel like it, but the truth is, are you claiming it?
And you can have, you can have spiritual gifts and spiritual blessings.
If you don’t claim them, you don’t understand them. And if you don’t understand them, you can experience them.
And so one of the things that kept the apostle Paul from giving up, keep on keeping on was he experienced the strength of almighty God in his life when he stood in councils and they criticized him and wanted to crucify him.
If possible everything they did, he never gave up, he never quit.
Now, did that mean that he, that he always just stood like a man?
I’m sure there were times when he was frightened for the moment and this is why the Lord would say to him.
Uh Here I am beside you, I’m gonna be with you in this no matter what you, what you’re going through.
And so when I think about his prayer, for example, for their visions, uh he was encouraging them to pray for the strength that God in that third chapter, the strength that God would give them for what he called them to do.
And then when he talks about putting on the spiritual armor, how does he start that?
In the sixth chapter of visions? He says, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.
And then he tells us even before he gets to the karma, which he talks about a hell of salvation to protect our mind, the breast of righteous, to protect our emotions.
And this girl of truth. So we’ll always stand in the truth.
And he talks about uh the uh sandals of salvation, always ready to go.
And then he talks about the sword of the spirit, the word of God.
And then above all else, he says, and above all else, the shield of faith, he starts out saying, be strong in the Lord and the power of his might.
That’s what you and I should start every day with the awareness that God is with us today and that we have the strength of God to face anything and everything and anybody and everybody, no matter what the situation is because listen, it isn’t our strength.
It’s his strength. If they go on my strength or your strength, some days we wouldn’t get up.
But it’s the strength of the Lord that is, it’s watch this. It’s the divine energy of God.
It’s the power of Almighty God within us.
And that doesn’t mean you won’t have difficult situations and circumstances, but he will enable us to live through it no matter what.
And so what kept him from giving up when he had so many reasons to give up was his awareness of God’s presence.
You and I need the same when likewise the same thing with Him.
And that is we have the right to experience the strength of God.
You have the Holy Spirit living within you that is you have God on the inside and he’s watch this.
He’s not gonna call you, watch this carefully.
He’s not gonna call you to do anything, face anything, experience anything without Him giving you the strength to do it.
He says he causes all things to work together for good to those who love him, to those who call the court on this purpose.
And sometimes He allows us to get in situations we think, oh God, I don’t know that I can handle this.
Why does he allow some of those things?
Because it gives him the opportunity to show us how real He is, how faithful He is, how powerful He is and how adequate you and I are when we put our trust in Him.
And that’s what, that’s what Paul is, is saying here in these passages.
Then of course, somebody says, well, now, uh how am I gonna, how am I gonna have that kind of courage?
Well, two things. And I said, every single Sunday on purpose.
If you’re gonna have courage in your life, and you’re gonna understand that God is working in your life, you got to be in the word.
Th th this is, this is the mind of God, this is the heart of God.
This is the spirit of God. Here’s, here’s where we find all the gifts of God.
What God is up to in their life.
If I neglect the word of God and neglect spending time with Him, I’m not gonna be strong.
It’s the word of God because as I read what he says, when I read, listen, going through some difficult time and thinking God forget it.
And I come to this verse, he says, God causes all these things to work together for good because I have called you.
Then I can, I don’t have to give up why I know that whatever I’m facing is tough as it is my God because He’s always truthly.
He’s gonna turn it for my good.
There’s some things I cannot figure out how God turns for good, but he does. He did listen.
He never said, understand me. He said, trust me, just trust me and that is the key.
And the apostle Paul certainly knew what he was doing in his relationship to God.
He didn’t give up, he didn’t quit. He just kept moving along, trusting him.
Then of course, the assurance of his will for us.
There’s nothing that’s more reassuring to keep us from giving up than knowing that we’re in the will of God.
And this doesn’t mean that you have to be preaching the gospel somewhere, but whatever God’s will is at this point in your life, you don’t give up, you don’t quit.
And he said, for example, he knew where he was when he faced all of these situations.
He says, he says, the father sent me to preach the gospel, not necessarily to baptize but to preach the gospel.
And he said, for example, in the 13th chapter of Acts, uh he gives us uh in that uh 47th verse, uh he says, assuring us that he knows what God has called to do.
Uh He says, for example, that God said to Him, I’ve placed you as a light for the gentiles that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.
Paul knew exactly where He was in life. Once he was saved, he knew exactly what God was up to.
He said, God says, I’ve called you to preach the gospel.
And I have, I have made you a light to the gentiles because first of all, the gospel was only being preached to the Jews.
And so because of the way they treated him and because they rejected him, he just brushed it off of, of his clothes and said, I’m going to the gentiles because that’s exactly what God intended for Him to do.
So the issue is this, if I’m gonna be able to keep on keeping on, I’ve got to know that I’m, I’m doing what God says.
Do how God says, do it when God says do it and where he says, do it, I don’t even have to understand why it’s always good to understand why not most of the time we will.
But if, if you want, if you want to have the strength that you don’t give up and you don’t quit and remember what I said, how many times people give up and quit right before the blessing, right before God opens the door, they walk away from the opportunity, right before God settles an issue in a marriage, oftentimes somebody walks away.
And so that gives up all pop all possibility of renewing that marriage.
You can just go through illustration after illustration, you don’t give up because you may give up at the very time when the best that you’re looking for is there waiting for you.
And the Apostle Paul knew that he understood he was in the will of the father.
And, and for example, wherever he went, God was there guiding him and lead him.
He was uh on the second missionary journey.
He was about to go um east and preaching the gospel and the spirit of God said, I want you to go west if he had gone east, you and I would not be where we are today.
But he, but the spirit of God spoke to him.
And then likewise, when the Lord spoke to him made it very clear where he was.
He gave us the same promises. Listen, Paul doesn’t have the same.
Paul didn’t have a single promise we don’t have. And remember this, Paul didn’t have the New Testament.
He had the Old Testament and then he had the sayings of Jesus, but he didn’t have it down like you and I have it on the printed page.
And so when I come to this question of what God is up to, here’s a, here’s a verse I always come back to in Psalm 32 8.
He says, I will teach you in the way which you should go.
I will guide you with my eye upon you.
He didn’t say I’d make it easy, but he said, I will teach you in the way you should go.
You don’t have to give up and quit. You don’t have to wanna know what’s going on.
I’ll show you that. And then in Proverbs 35 and six, he says, trust in the Lord with all your heart lay not to your own understanding.
You may not understand it in all your ways. Acknowledge Him. He says, I’ll direct your path.
We don’t have to give up and we don’t have to quit and we don’t have to wonder what to do.
God has already assured us of His guidance and direction.
Then the overflow, the overflowing joy that fills us, for example.
And the Apostle Paul is such a beautiful example of that because the uh the book of Philippians, for example, is all about joy.
And here he is in jail. Not, doesn’t have very long to live. And uh what is he talking about?
He’s talking about joy. He starts off talking about uh where he is and what’s happening in jail.
And that uh he says, I want you to know Brean, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel.
And how is that true? Because all the, all the guards that came in to guard him, he just shared the gospel with them.
And so one after the other.
And so he said, before long, the whole guard uh knew that he was there and it heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And you find, you find this sense of joy throughout Paul’s writings. And he says, rejoice.
And again, I say rejoice, he comes to the fourth chapter and he’s still rejoicing and he’s still in prison.
Why? Because he knew the father was with him.
He knew that he was doing the father’s will and he knew that he was following God’s plan and purpose for his life.
Had it been tough. It had been by the time he got to this place, he’d had 1000 reasons to give up and quit, wouldn’t think about quitting.
Why? For the simple reason, he knew that he was doing what the father had called him to do.
So I would simply ask you this. Um Do you, do you rejoice?
He said, what do you mean by? I mean, do you have any happy moments when things are tough?
Can you just say thank you, Jesus? Praise the Lord. I just wanna bless your holy name.
Can you rejoice in the Lord when things are tough? Or do you say God?
Why do you let this happen to me? Father? Why, why don’t you answer my prayer?
In other words, you know, you and I can argue with God and that doesn’t.
So somebody says, well, God must get angry. No, he doesn’t. He realizes we’re just human.
We make mistakes and he realizes of things we don’t understand.
But you know, I’m over here and um I’m wondering why things the way they are over here and God’s over here.
And he says, look, when you get over here, you just wait, you’re gonna be so glad you didn’t jump off the table.
You here you are. And I’ve been waiting for you because I have the best for you. Listen to this.
God has the best for his Children. Anything less than that, anything less than that is not of God.
Now, that doesn’t mean there won’t be difficult to hardship and trial for us just like there was for the Apostle Paul, but he’s going to turn it for our good.
If we respond in the proper fashion. So this is why he could rejoice even in jail.
And even in his message, he’s telling them to rejoice, even he’s close to death and knows that he is and he’s talking about rejoicing in the Lord.
Then of course, the life changing lessons that God teaches us.
You think about how much truth, you know, you know, if you just come to church Sunday after Sunday after Sunday and you take notes week after week after week.
And uh in the first service, two uh people came down the aisle, one of them said, I’ve been watching in touch for 24 years.
I said 27 years and taking notes. I think about how much truth I know they’ve heard.
If they’ve listened, they’ve heard truth, that truth, that the truth, that the truth after truth, that truth, that truth, that truth.
And this is why I said to you write it down, write it down, write it down.
But the Apostle Paul, he was an awesome student of the Word of God.
And on one occasion, it says, for example, he had been saved very long.
He went to, instead of going to Jerusalem and talking to the apostles, he went to Arabia to get by himself so that God could teach him the truth.
And when you think for a moment, if we didn’t have the epistles of the, of Paul, what we, we know about sanctification, salvation, uh substitution or death of Jesus, the atoning death of Jesus.
However, what we know about, uh, declared righteous before almighty God, all the doctrinal things that we believe.
We wouldn’t know it if the Apostle Paul had not lived, it did not give up, kept going and kept learning and learning and learning and teaching in those days.
And so much of what, what, what he has written to us, he wrote from a jail cell.
I mean, when I think about having been through all that instead of sitting in a jail moping about how difficult things are and oftentimes his followers, uh uh supposedly his followers would be outside the jail, criticizing him when he’s in the jail doing what the will of God it was for his life.
And so you can, you can have a morbid moping attitude or you can rejoice in the Lord always no matter what’s going on.
So let me ask you a question. Have you ever been in trouble? And God said, do it yourself?
Has he ever said I’m leaving you? I, I’m gonna let you handle it.
You, you, you take care of it.
I’m I’m finished with you moping and groaning and griping and, and uh wondering where I am.
No, he just lets us mope and groan and whatever it might be.
Then when we get serious enough to get right with him, what does he do?
He always comes through and we understand that old song says we understand it better by and by.
God loves you. He wants the best for you.
And when I think about why people give up, they give up because they don’t know Him, they give up because they don’t believe Him, they don’t trust him.
They feel hopeless. Instead of thinking my hope is in Christ and Christ alone, my hope is built on nothing less but Jesus Christ and his righteousness.
You know, when people say, well, things are just not going my way. Ask yourself this question.
If things aren’t going your way before you give up and quit, ask yourself this question.
I wonder if things are going God’s way and I’m out of His will.
I don’t understand it and he’s up to something I’m not aware of.
It just may be that what you’re going through, this is difficult and tough and you wanna quit and give up is the very thing God is using to draw you to himself cause you to cling to Him, open your eyes, help you to see who He is and what he’s up to in your life and teach you to apply the truth.
All of us know more truth than we probably apply.
So I would ask you this when you take notes, for example, on Sunday morning and you go and put those notes somewhere.
I hope you put them all in the same place.
But do you ever pull him out during the week? Do you ever hear anything?
I know you do. Do you ever hear anything uh on Sunday that during the week you think?
Oh God, I needed that. Where, where are your notes? Are you fumbling around?
Trying to figure out where they are? The Apostle Paul? Listen, he loved what God taught him.
And so in jail instead of moping around and having a pity party. What’s he doing?
He’s thinking about you and me now he doesn’t know. 2000 years later, we’re gonna hear this and see it.
But what is he doing? God is leading him to write down what God is teaching him and what he’s experiencing in a cold Roman jail cell.
He could just be complaining. But listen, he didn’t give up, he didn’t quit and he didn’t have words to say about Nero and all the rest of them.
He listen, he applied what he knew where he was, what he had to apply.
And all that those who followed him would know the truth.
I say about Apostle Paul Hallelujah, praise God that he didn’t give up and quit and, and that he, he wrote it down.
So you and I have it to live by then.
Of course, the fruit His truth has produced through him.
He said, for example, on his missionary journeys, the churches were growing, one thing, the churches were growing and they were, they were increasing in membership all the time.
And if you’ll think about it he wrote these epistles to these churches, to Corinth, the, to the Galatians, to the Romans and so forth.
And uh if you turn to the book of Corinthians and you just read that book, uh that was no pastor would want to be the pastor of the first Baptist church in Corinth or any Corinthian church.
That, that was a terrible crowd. They were, they were guilty of about everything you can think of.
And if you read the book of Corinthians, it’s all about his correcting this sin and that sin and the other.
Did he give up? No.
And think about this when he would establish a church and leave a few people, then he’d come back around the 2nd 3rd mission of journeys.
Sometimes when he came back, they were just in a mess.
They let false teachers come in and um they didn’t know what they believed sometime and they fuss and fought just like people do today.
At some point. You think Paul would say, you know what enough of this?
I’ve three missionary journeys and y’all still acting like this and yet the gospel survived.
And 2000 years later, we are worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ and sending missionaries all over the world preaching and teaching the word of God.
And our names are written in the lamb’s book of Life.
And you and I are eternally secure because of the gospel.
So we’re encouraged by what he wrote and what he suffered. Then for example, the award he’s promised us.
One of the reasons that we should never give up is thinking about what God has provided for us.
And if you’ll notice in this passage, we read a few moments ago to second Timothy.
Uh he said to uh Timothy in the future, there is laid up for me, the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that day and not only to me but to all who love his appearing.
Paul knew he had an awesome reward coming. And you say, well, I don’t think I have any.
Well, let me ask you a question.
You raise your Children to be Godly big reward, love your husband or your wife. Reward.
You do your best reward, do your best in school.
Reward, share your faith reward, stand up for the truth. Reward. Give to the Lord’s work, right?
We just go on and on and on the 1000 ways. God can reward his Children.
And you see, there’s not a single legitimate reason for a child of God to give up and quit and throw in the towel.
Listen, you have God on your side. He’s not only on your side. He’s living within you.
He’s promised to be there. He’s promised to be with you always and he’s promised to enable you, help you strengthen you and encourage you in every circumstance of life.
So when people say, well, you know if you just understood what I was going through.
Well, maybe I do. Maybe I don’t, I know somebody who does and that’s God and God understood whatever you’re going through before you ever started going through it and listen, he’s ready and willing to equip you so that you won’t give up right before the best happens in your life.
And the reason I repeat that is because I’ve seen that so many times in so many different ways in people’s lives.
And I’ve seen it in my own life when I think, oh God, and right before I think Lord, I can’t handle any more of this.
The Lord open some awesome door and I thank him and thank him and thank him that he didn’t let me give up and quit because he never intended for us to do that.
So I’m saying to you because God is saying to you whatever you are facing in life at this moment, no matter how difficult it is, how tough it is, how discouraging it is and all the reasons and the evidence you have for walking away and all, all the, all the proof that you have that things are wrong.
Remember, there is a God in heaven and if you’re saved, he’s living within you and that God will take you through whatever you’re facing in life, no matter what you don’t give, listen, watch this.
You say, well, I’m giving up, I’m giving up on my job. I’m giving up on this.
I’m no, you’re giving up on God as a follower of Jesus.
When you give up, you’re giving up on Him, your boss or your marriage, somebody else can’t do for you.
You’re giving up on God. You don’t give up on the Supreme.
Listen, the supreme power in the whole universe, you don’t give up on it.
And the one who loves you enough to have given his son to die on the cross, you don’t give up on him.
So remember who you were giving up on? And when you do, you won’t give up.
Well, I think also the vision of the cross always before us. That’s what Paul said.
The vision of the cross always before him.
And he makes an awesome statement uh in this six chapter of Galatians.
And um when you listen to what he says here, and you look at the life that he lived and uh here’s what he says, he says in the 14th verse.
But may it never be that I would boast except that one thing he says, except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and out to the world.
He said the cross has made it possible for me to survive in it and everything because it is at the cross.
The ating death of Jesus Christ purchased our salvation at the cross.
The atoning death of Jesus Christ purchased everything we have.
It’s the atoning death of Jesus Christ that shed his blood that makes our forgiveness a living reality.
Jesus didn’t give up. He didn’t quit though.
He must have in the flesh at times, been discouraged but not in the spirit. You know why?
Because he and the father were absolutely one and he knew that nothing could conquer him because he was God in the human flesh.
You don’t give up, you don’t quit.
And around this today, there are lots of people who wanna give up.
There are lots of people who wanna quit and they can give you some, some rather um shall we say a good reasons from their perspective?
Why they should walk away from a situation of why they should quit but not in God’s viewpoint.
He has the best for us and he’s willing to give us the best, but he doesn’t bless quitters.
It won’t happen. Christ sacrificed his life for our salvation.
And when I look at the scriptures and see what Jesus did, he didn’t give up.
I can’t give up Apostle Paul didn’t give up. We can’t give up. And here’s the issue.
He will reward us for not giving up.
The reward may not come to, to glory or you may be rewarded today or tomorrow or next week or next month or next year.
He doesn’t overlook our obedience, our faithfulness, our loyalty, our devotion and to our keep on keeping on.
Then of course, naturally, our love and devotion to Jesus Christ that should keep us keeping on no matter what.
And uh Paul said in a beautiful way in Philippians, he said for me to live is for Christ to live, for me to die is my gain.
So think about that. Isn’t that really what you and I want for our life that we want to live the kind of life that when people meet us, it won’t take them long to hear Jesus in their voice.
It won’t take them long to see Christ in our actions.
It won’t take them long to feel the love that you and I feel for him.
He said for, to me to live is Christ.
That was his whole perception for, to me to live is Christ and he says not to die.
I I gained by that but for me to live is for Christ to live.
And so if I should ask you, do you love God? And that’s what you’d say you do.
Uh Do you love him enough to serve him? Oh, yes. Do you love him enough to suffer from him?
Well, uh it depends on what that is. No.
If we love him, we won’t give up, we won’t quit when the going gets rough when the suffering gets hard and the pain becomes intense, we don’t give up and we don’t quit.
We keep going because Jesus kept going.
The Apostle Paul kept going and the teaching of scripture is that you and I keep going likewise.
And Paul talks about he, he talks about God being rich in mercy and grace and love toward us.
And He is. And so many of God’s people oftentimes they want to give up and quit.
And I’m saying to you don’t give up and quit, ask God to give you wisdom and to give you strength to keep going.
And I can think of some people in my own mind and heart that been through very, very difficult times.
And I wondered how they made it through because they trusted God because they believed the very things that we talked about here, maybe didn’t think about them in that way.
But if you had asked them, do you think that God is with you? Yes.
Do you believe He’s listening to your prayers? Yes. Are you reading the word of God? Yes.
You could just go right down the line and all the things we’ve said, they would have said yes to.
And yet nobody ever laid it out as a principal, laid it out in an outline for them.
So let me ask you a question today.
What are you tempted to give up on?
What are you tempted to walk away from?
Are you willing to say to him?
Lord, I’m hanging in here no matter what because I know that if I’m in here, you’re in here with me by my side to see me through and once in a while I’ll put something in the back screen because I just want you to see it with your eyes.
I can say it. But look at this for a moment because here’s the reasons people give up and the way they give up, listen, because when they face situations, they face them fearfully afraid, hopelessly, they don’t see their way clear because they’re looking through the eyes of fear rebelliously.
They don’t like it. They don’t want it that way. And so what happens fearfully, hopelessly rebelliously?
Or you can look at those situations courageously.
And the next simple phrase I have up there is this, we make the choice, we make the choice of how we live through the difficult times in life.
And it’s my prayer that whoever you are, if you’ve never trusted Jesus Christ as your savior, I can tell you you’re not gonna make it.
You may say, well, I have so much money, you can lose it. You, I have great health.
You can lose that. I have a great family. You can lose that. You can lose anything and everything. Listen.
But if you’re saved by the grace of God, you can’t lose that. You can’t lose your salvation.
You can’t lose your relationship to almighty God.
And God has called us to trust Him as our savior through Jesus Christ, lay our life before him and allow him to live his life through us.
And to demonstrate to the world that Jesus Christ is who he says he is.
He will do what he says he’ll do and he’s more than capable of fulfilling that promise.
I would plead with you. Don’t walk away, don’t quit, don’t give up.
Don’t throw in the tail as people say, but just tell the Lord Lord, I’m gonna trust you to see me through this.
I don’t know how, but I’m gonna trust you because you said you will never leave me nor forsake me and God.
I believe you always tell the truth.
Father, how grateful we are that you have place within us, your very self and the person of the Holy Spirit to equip us to do anything and everything you would have us to do in such a way.
We don’t ever have to quit and give up.
We wanna keep on keeping on because that is the image that Jesus leaves us and the image of the apostle Paul and multitudes of saints who’s gone before us.
So I pray for any and every person here this morning who is feeling tempted to give up, who’s feeling tempted to quit, who’s feeling tempted to walk out, to walk away, to lay it down, to lay it aside, to turn around that you would remind them.
There are many reasons not to, there are many reasons to stay steady and calm as Paul would say to Timothy and to keep moving on and trusting you moment by moment and you said you will cause all the things that may tempt us and tries to quit to turn out for our good if we’ll trust you.
And we just wanna say thank you for that in Jesus name.
Amen.
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