John Gunter: Alright. We continue our our series here today, Marks of a True Disciple Living the Character of Christ. And just as a refresher, this is what we have covered so far. We've talked about being faith filled, love driven, humble in spirit, obedient in action. Last week, we talked about being spirit led, and we have this week and two more weeks in this series.
And so if you like it, hey, two more weeks. If you don't like it, two more weeks. I get perspective is everything on this. But today, we talk about something that may be a little difficult, persevering in faith. We've talked about all these other things, but okay.
How do we persevere through things? But I think a lot of times, we expect even ourselves to once we're baptized and we follow Jesus, we're really hard on ourselves and being imperfect. And so what I want you to know is that discipleship does not require perfection, it requires perseverance. Because things are going to happen, are they not Christians? I kind of picked on my son last week, or asked you to say some things for my son because he is starting out in his walk with Christ, he needs to know what to expect and how to get through those tough times, doesn't he?
What that is is, alright, I want to persevere in faith. Now, what you need to know is faith isn't proven by how we start, but it's revealed by how we finish. Because we can do things in life, we can make poor decisions, and the hardest I am on myself, I know I knew better. Have you ever said that to yourself? Or maybe to your kids, didn't you know better?
Right? And so as Christians, understand that, okay, we're not going to be perfect. God understands you're not gonna be perfect. If he didn't understand that and didn't know it, would have never had to send Jesus. Do understand?
But he understands our nature, he understands how we are, and he understands that we needed a savior. The scripture I'm gonna start with this morning is from James one, and we're gonna read, two through four here. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. Well, I started out with an easy one, didn't I? Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
And let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Now this may this may be a a very difficult thing to hear. How many of you, every time there's a trial in your life, you are celebratory? Oh, I put in a a prayer of praise this morning. I am going through some stuff.
Thank you, Lord. Right? You know, somebody sideswiped me this week on I 10. Thank you, Jesus. Right?
No. We don't we don't really think like that, and and that's okay, because I think what he what he's saying there, when when James calls believers to consider it pure joy when they face trials, it's not because the pain or the thing itself is something to be joyful over, but as you know, as Christians who have followed Jesus, it's not that thing, the pain, that we should be joyful over, it is what that pain produces. Because you understand down the line, I'm a better person because of having gone through this. Now, wouldn't have chosen it. I wouldn't choose it for you because it was very difficult.
But on the other side, I realized that is what this produced. And what I wanna point out to you, the word joy here does not mean happiness or pretending everything is fine. Alright? So when you say, count it all joy, brothers, hold on. It does not mean happiness or pretending everything is fine.
It refers this word refers to a settled thankful trust in God. Because I know God has me even when nothing around me is secure. Do you understand that? That I can have faith in the midst of a storm knowing I don't know what the outcome is, but I know that God has me. And so when he says count or consider, this is this is an idea of a mental discipline.
This is not a feeling of joy or an emotional response. He's not telling us how to feel, he's telling us how to think. That we think about God and how faithful he is, and that God will bring me through it. And so trials are not really an interruption in our spiritual walk, they're a part of our spiritual walk. They prove that we are alive, that we are trying to follow Jesus.
Anybody after your baptism, you've lived for years and just never had anything come up, everything's been smooth sailing. Right? You go ahead and write a book and tell us how to navigate life like that. Right? Nobody goes through life like this.
We understand that, and we may even dread the trials that come, but to say that, you know, we shouldn't have those trials is is something else. And what I would say here is if your faith has never been tested, can you really trust it? Because faith is really built in those times of trial, isn't it? You you think about the teenager that leaves home for the first time. The trials are gonna come, aren't they?
The understanding is gonna have to come. They're gonna have to make a decision whether they live on the faith of their parents, or their grandparents, or whoever brought them, or if they're going to decide at this moment that I'm going to live a life of faith for myself. What I wanna ask you, do you assume that difficulty in your life means that something is wrong? Because I think we can kind of lean towards that. That when something happens, well, maybe maybe I did something I know what I did, and God's punishing me for that.
So do you think when something happens that it means something's wrong, or do you believe God can use it to grow something that is right? That's two different ideas there. Right? I'm down. I'm being punished.
There's nothing to be happy about then. But to understand that God can take any situation, any situation we're we're toughest on ourselves, God can never forgive me for that, oh, I'm glad those people at church don't know that I did this, and this situation happened. We're rough on ourselves. But people of faith, marks of a true disciple says, God can get me through any of this. So when James says trials produce steadfastness, he's not just talking about surviving.
Okay? The word here in Greek means something much more powerful. It's not passive waiting. It's almost like a militant patience. A standing strong in the storm that again, I can't see the end.
I don't know how it's gonna work out, but I stand firm. I am rooted in my trust and faith in him, knowing that I don't have all the answers, but he does. It's this kind of endurance that comes from holding on to God with kind of this white knuckled feeling. You ever felt like that in your life? Like, that's all I know to do, God.
It is so crazy right now. I don't know what to do, but I'm holding on to you. That's what this is talking about. We talk about being steadfast. One commentator put it like this, Endurance is faith stretched out.
That's interesting imagery, isn't it? Endurance is faith stretched out. That is what James is after here when he says this. Not short term faith, not a soft faith, but stretched faith. Faith that deepens, hardens, and even roots itself within the storm.
I almost got an image this week to have someone standing in the rain, because we almost see that as like a a down depressing image. But a standing in the rain or or a standing in the storm, could look that way, but it also looks like this person has not run away. This person continues through the battle, through the storm, and that's who we want to be. And so from Romans five, I'm gonna read one through five here. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Hold on to that. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. You catch that?
Hope again there at the end. Again, in verse two, okay, through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace by which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. That's what keeps us rooted, our faith, that we are going to persevere no matter what comes because we are rooted in that. We have hope, and again, we rejoice in all of these things because endurance produces character, and character produces hope. In verse five, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
And so God isn't just helping you get through something, he is forming you into something. And you've heard me say before that the thing that that gets me is when someone will not be baptized, they have faith in Jesus, but they won't come to him because they feel like I need to get it all right before I do. And you all know if we wait until the day where we get it all right before coming to him, what day will that be? It won't happen. And so, God isn't helping you through something, he is forming you into something.
So come to him and allow him to shape you because, again, we we have this individualistic mindset where, you know, I'll I'll do the hard work, and I'll make it to where I come to God in in the shape I wanna come to him. No. You come to God and allow God to form you into the person he wants you to be. And so character in this text means tried and tested. It's it's proven, not polished, but weathered.
You understand that? We like the we like the beauty of things. Right? I have a vehicle now, it's the first new vehicle vehicle I have ever bought. I don't like it.
I like the vehicle, but I don't like having a new one because it's it's too clean. I like things with with scratches on them because I I then I don't have to worry about it. Right? I live in fear of that first scratch. Evan, the other night after our Wednesday night thing, was putting his dirty handprints all over my car.
If that would've been my truck, wouldn't have cared. Right? But we we like the polished, we like the new, but but the weather, the worn shows that you have lived life. Right? Because we could we could live in our own comforts of our home and never be tested and never interact with anyone.
What does that do for your faith? Because those things you you endure during the week, those things you go through help to form you into the person that god wants to form you into. Right? Again, you may not like it. You may not certainly appreciate some of those trials, but it is forming you into someone else.
And so hope is not as we read this here, hope is not a gamble, it's guaranteed. It's the faith in in God that because he has given us the the Holy Spirit as a down payment saying, okay, I am or we are his. Right? And God will finish what he started. He's not just changing your situation, he's changing your nature.
And so, you wanna know what perseverance looks like in real life? It looks like patience when the breakthrough hasn't come yet. It looks like self control when you wanna give up or take shortcuts. These aren't just good character traits, they are fruit of the holy spirit. As we read last week, Fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.
Against such things, there is no law. So when you talk about perseverance, sometimes we think of of long drawn out, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's having the fruit of the spirit to have this self control or patience to just get through something because somebody is not being very kind today at work. Or I I've got to get through this because this person has treated me this way. Right?
And so perseverance comes out of these fruits of the spirit. And so if you want to know, okay, well, to have patience, to have self control, this is how we should live. And so when you feel weak, I don't want you to think, I've just got to try harder, I want you to think in terms of I want you to surrender more deeply to him. Because again, that idea of I'm just going to cinch my belt a little tighter and get to work, how far is that going to get you? Because we follow a God who is all knowing, all giving, and often we are just trying to do things on our own, aren't we?
You don't have to enjoy the trial, but you can trust what it's doing because we've lived that, haven't we? You said you have. You know on this other side. Hebrews twelve one and two, Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, and who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Now, I I really love Hebrews twelve one and two because it talks about this cloud of witnesses.
That we have people go back and read Hebrews 11. It's known as the faith chapter where the Hebrew writer there just mentions all of these people and how they have had lives of faith. Now, we have those people, but we also have the people within our circles that have gone on before us. And the Hebrew writer describes those people as a cloud of witnesses. Can you imagine that?
I like thinking about that. That there are people I'd love to have known my grandparents on my dad's side longer. They they passed away when I was young. But I love to think I know they were faithful people, they loved God, it was said about my grandmother, we called her nanny, that you couldn't have a conversation with her without her finally getting to, are you a Christian, and how can we make this happen type of thing. And I love thinking about that I am not alone here, that those people have passed on from Abraham to my grandmother.
They are a cloud of witnesses in a couple of different ways. One, they've shown us their example. Right? But you can think about how they live their lives. And guess what?
They didn't live them in perfect ways, did they? Even Abraham. Right? Even Moses. You know, people who have even killed folks end up in chapter called the faith chapter.
Even my grandmother, who is now part of that witness. You are not alone in this race. Those who have endured before you are witnesses, not just spectators, but proof that God can carry you through. Some of those people grew up in very hard times, and God brought them through. You may feel isolated, but you are not alone.
This race is not private, is it? We go with other people. And so, what I want to tell you is someone else's endurance might be your encouragement. You had somebody like that in your life, That because of the way they lived through those hard times, you respected someone, they went through something, and man, I can just see that in them, and I'm thankful. But guess what?
Your life and your endurance and your perseverance may be an encouragement for someone else. Sometimes we look so much inwardly, and we're thinking about what we get from someone else, but guess what? Somebody somebody in here may be getting that from you. I love and we we pick our seats in here, don't we? You're all sitting pretty close to where you normally sit.
We get our comfort. We like to be in a certain place. Now I think about growing up, we had our pew. We had our little red bench, how many of you had an Afghan? You know, when I went to Lakewood, some of you all had nested big time over there.
Right? But just being in same place, and that person I sit beside, they're not here this week, but boy, I'd love them to be here because I draw encouragement from them. You ever sat beside someone who would just sing and you just say, I can't sing, but I can sing with them. Right? Yeah.
And so we're able to draw encouragement from other people in different ways that they are there and they're fighting the battle, and when we come on Sunday mornings or Wednesdays when we meet in homes, we understand that we're not going through this alone, that we have a whole group of people. I love going to conferences because you fill up big places of people and you go, oh, I'm not alone. Praise God for that. And so the Greek word for weight here implies anything unnecessary, even good things that may slow us down. How many of you are just full to the brim in your schedule?
Yeah. Some some of those may be good things, some of those may be bad things, and and the weight here implies anything that's unnecessary that can weigh you down. And so we can have things that slow us down that are bad or evil. We can have things that we've just filled our life with so many things, we can't do what we want to do, and so we need to rid ourselves, of those things, and neither of those things belong in the race. And so what's slowing you down?
Not just sin, but anything that's stealing your focus or strength. So it's not always the bad things that take us out of the race, sometimes it's just the extra things. And so we have to be careful of that. The race, or the Greek word for race, is agona. It sounds like agony, doesn't it?
And that's because it means struggle or conflict or fight. It's not just a jog, it's not just a leisurely stroll, it is the idea of we are going to have a battle of endurance. But we we battle nonetheless. Anybody ever done a race in here, like, longer than, like a quarter mile? Have you?
Yeah. Did you get into the race and because you couldn't see the end, you quit? You know what? This is not for me. Five k?
No, thank you. I don't know where this ends. But how often do we live our lives that way? That I don't know what you're I'm going throw up my hands because I don't know how this turns out. Or I'm a fair weather person.
Right? I want this to be perfect. A buddy of mine, he got to run the Boston Marathon, trained for it, you know, did all the things, got in all the races, and he went into Boston and he said they set you out in this area way away from the city, and it was in, I think, the twenties or thirties, and they're out in running gear. And for the longest time, they do nothing but stand. And so by the time he started running the race, he couldn't feel like his legs and stuff.
But he continued to run. Right? We don't we don't quit because something happens, we continue to run. I don't continue to run the Boston Marathon, and I'm not gonna get into that. But we don't stop just because we don't know how things turn out.
Right? We continue to run. Jesus I want you to know this. Jesus didn't enjoy the cross. So when we read count it all joy, don't think Jesus went to the cross skipping.
Right? Thank you, Lord, for doing this. Remember, Jesus prayed in the garden if this cup would pass for me. It's it's not I enjoy the pain, or I enjoy this, but I understand that God has me. And that no matter what comes, my eyes are focused on him.
That's how God that's how Jesus got through this. Right? Is that his eyes were focused on God, that God had him, this was for a purpose, and God would take care of him. And if Jesus did that, shouldn't we do the same thing, that our eyes are fixed on him no matter what happens this week? No matter what you're going through, no matter what medical procedure is coming up, our eyes are fixed on him.
You don't have to enjoy that these things are happening, but have a faith that says, though these things are happening, God is at work. And through these bad things, through these things I have to persevere through, God is working on forming me into someone else. In verse three, consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted. When you want to give up, don't look at the pain, look at the person who has already finished the race. Again, thinking of that cloud of witnesses that is with us all the time.
From second Timothy four seven, Paul says this, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. And again, think about the life of Paul or Saul. Was it perfect church? No. Even though he was zealous for God, he was on the wrong path.
Right? Even having people killed just because their allegiance was to Christ. Paul's life was marked by endurance through things, that he wrote many at least four of his letters from prison. He endured through these things. It wasn't a life of ease or comfort, but it was a life of faithfulness, that through these things, I can bring joy to others.
I can encourage other people. I don't know how I would feel if I was in prison today, but I hope that I would be like Paul, that I would be an encourager, that I would continue to sing songs, that I would lift up my faith, but to understand that God is still working on me as long as I am drawing breath in this life. I should be being formed into someone new. And so I'm gonna ask you the question, where have you been tempted to give up? What situation has made you go, I don't know.
Is your faith growing or you're just kind of holding on? God has never promised it's gonna be easy. He promised that you won't be alone. You're not gonna walk through this life alone. I know sometimes we feel that way, but you will not walk alone.
God walks with you and we walk with you, don't we, church? We need to continue to draw encouragement from one another. And so we're gonna offer an invitation this morning. I'm just gonna ask you, come forward if you are spiritually exhausted and breathe in encouragement from this church. Come forward if you need prayer to endure a situation that you're going through or if you wanna begin this race starting with baptism today, allowing God to form you into who he wants you to be.
Would you come as we stand and as we sing?