I hope and pray you are keeping safe and taking precautions as we enter into another month of lockdowns, distancing, isolation, shut downs. The goal is to protect our most vulnerable people from getting sick, and especially having everyone get sick at the same time. As Christians, we can show our care for others by staying put and not going out unless totally necessary. We can care for others by watching our own health, washing our hands and keeping safe distance. We can also remember to pray for everyone in the healthcare industry, pray for those in nursing homes and assisted living, pray for people living in close quarters with others, and pray for the scientists and researchers who are working on cures, vaccines, treatments, tests, diagnostics, and those who study the data and the trends of the virus transmission. We’ve been at this for a few months now, and people are probably beginning to grow weary of the repetition, the virus keeping us stuck in one place, the virus is the only thing that the news is talking about, and we keep hearing the same things over and over, but just with updated numbers. But for the sake of the most vulnerable members of our society, we must stay the course, follow guidelines, exercise caution and stick to the plan. And Sticking to a plan is something we as Christians should be familiar with.
I am going to write today on a topic which is a fundamental point of theology, is one of the five points of Calvinism, and something that is discussed a lot in the Bible. Perseverance. What do we know about it, how is it defined, how does it relate to a Christian, what does it mean to have Perseverance, how does it look?
We can say perseverance is kind of like endurance. It means, pressing on or continuing on for an extended period of time. People like to use this comparison, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. The understanding is that a Sprint doesn’t require the same perseverance as a marathon does. Well, that’s true in the execution of that race, Sprints are short bursts. But Training for a sprint or any sort of sport or pursuit requires endurance, diligence, sticking with a plan. The Bible has translations that also use the word steadfastness in place of perseverance. To persevere or be steadfast means being resolute, dutifully firm and unwavering in your conduct. Perseverance means persisting in something despite difficulty or in spite of a delay in achieving success. When we persevere it means hanging in there, despite the desire or urge to give up, quit, relent, pause for a break. Perseverance is continuing in something even though the success takes a long time and a difficult path. Difficult paths require hardship, and the Bible talks about hardship quite a bit.
In Hebrews 12:7-11, the Bible says that we will experience hardship because we are true sons and daughters, and we are being trained in discipline. Some parts of the recent few weeks can be described as hardship. I am sure some of the next few weeks will be difficult, will include suffering, there will be hardship. That is to be expected, simply because thats the world we live in. God created the universe to be a logical place, where causes have effects. People must reap the things they sow. When you expect that you can reap sinful behaviors and not sow the negative consequences of them is actually a form of mocking God. The Bible says that humanity is a fallen people, so we will sow imperfect fruits. Ever since Eden, humanity has lived in a world that contains sickness, decay and death. These are general effects of sin found in nature or the environment. They effect everyone regardless of whether they have committed specific sins or not. There are also effects of sin found directly as a result of man’s specific sins. You can see the immediate impact or effects of those types of sins, like greed or adultery or lust when you look around in the world. The world contains hardships. Christians should be a people that cause fewer hardships than the rest of the world, but that doesn’t mean that we are immune to feeling the effects of hardships. In fact, with a heart of flesh, and the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, Christians may be more sympathetic and emotionally pained than anyone else by the hardships that occur in the world. But, we are sons and daughters of God, so unlike the rest of the world, we are being trained. For Sons and Daughters of God, Hardship leads to fruits. Hebrews 12:11 says “Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” So the fruits of hardship are Righteousness and peace. Remember, Righteousness is not something we can ever claim credit for. The Bible says none are righteous, so that is a gift from God. Only Christ is Righteous , we are just counted as righteous by association. We are righteous By being In Christ. How about the harvest of peace? It would be nice to say we are a peaceful people, but that’s not of us either! The Bible says while we were still enemies, God gave us peace. So when the Bible tells us that through hardship we will reap a harvest of Righteousness and Peace, we must understand that the harvest that we are to reap is receiving gifts or graces from God. God’s training is a bit different than the training we know as humans. If I go to the Gym and I train by working on my arms, I can see bigger arm muscles and can say, “Look! My work caused these arms.” But God’s training results in fruits that are best described as us receiving gifts from God. The Harvest of us enduring hardship is God is giving us these gifts of Righteousness and Peace, which we can’t take any credit for. It’s just a gift that God gives us.
And this harvest only happens to those who are trained by hardship. So are we being Trained to be better people at enduring hardship? Trained to handle things better? Are we becoming more skilled at handing lots of difficult things? Kind of, but not in the way that most people might initially think. The way we persevere, the way we endure hardship, and the way we demonstrate our training is actually just by acknowledging our weakness and relying on God, and trusting in Him alone, not ourselves.
Isaiah 40:29 “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.”
God receives glory when in our faintness, we look to Him as our source of power. When we have no might, God increases our strength. God is glorified when we depend on Him in our insufficiency. Us admitting our weakness and lack of power honors him.
In the New Testament, Paul was praying that God would remove a weakness or a thorn in his side. He says in 1 Corinthians 12:9 But God said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. “
We receive God’s grace and rely on his perfection in our weakness. When we think of being trained in a worldly sense, we get better at something and we become more competent, more able to rely on ourselves and on our training. When we train in the Biblical sense, it is the opposite. We acknowledge we are less competent, less reliant on ourselves, less strong, more dependent on God.
Hebrews 12:1 And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,
The author of Hebrews writes, let us run with Perseverance.. We are running a race. This isn’t a race that we planned out, this isn’t a race for us to achieve our goals. This is a race, a journey, a path that we are supposed to run, it’s ours to run, and it was marked out for us. We weren’t the ones who marked it out, it isn’t our roadmap or plan. Our choices weren’t a factor here. God has marked out the path for us. It’s his design, his map, his plan. The Bible establishes that these things are preordained. Destined to happen and occur. And our job is to stick to the plan, to keep the course, to run that race marked out.. Even if it’s difficult, even if we don’t want to stay the course. Even Christ Himself had acknowledged in his Gethsemane prayer, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
When we see God’s plan for us, and our flesh says, “no thanks, I wanna go this way” there’s a conflict between our flesh and our spirit. The Bible says our charge is to keep running, to keep going, despite difficulty or delay in success.
Perseverance means seeing something through to the end, and When we read the Bible, we realize that In Christ, By God’s power, we will Persevere.
1 Peter 1:5 You who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
We are protected by God’s power until the end. There is no question about whether or not we will persevere, because an All Powerful God has promised to make it happen, according to His word.
In John 10:28 Jesus describes his relationship to all who believe in Him. He compares himself to the Good Shepherd, and compares believers as His Sheep. He says:
27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all[c]; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”
Do you know Jesus as your Shepherd? Do you listen to his voice? Do you believe? Then you will have eternal life. You will be gifted perseverance. It’s not a question of straying or losing your salvation. Because Christ says you are in his hand. You are in the hand of the Father and the Son. When you think about that, it’s hard to imagine a way not to persevere. Something would have to snatch you out of the Hand of God.
Philippians 1:3-6
3 I thank my God every time I remember you. 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
God has begun a Good work in all of us. We were dead sinners, we were enslaved to transgression and disobedience, but he brought us to life. He freed us from the bondage or slavery of our sin. He sent his son to die for our sins, to pay the price. He gave us a new heart and we have been reborn in His Spirit. All of these things are miracles, yet they are just the beginning. The Holy Spirit is a seal of an inheritance that is to come. As God’s holy people, we have been promised that God will carry us on to completion. We will persevere, not because we are doing it, but because it is God’s Power that ensures this perseverance. God began the good work in us, and he will carry it to completion. It doesn’t depend on us, on whether we are having a good day, or a bad day. Whether we are on fire for God, or if we are focused on other things of this Earth. The road is charted out and marked ahead of us for a race, but a trustworthy, all powerful, and faithful God will see us to the end.
You might say, “sure we will make it to heaven, we will persevere because God has us in his hands. That’s great, but what does that mean for us, when we are putting up with hardship?” Perseverance is a quality that we will demonstrate and exhibit in this life, not because we have a quality, but because God has a quality, and His Spirit lives in us. We talked about it before, but we look Righteous, but it’s not something about our character, it’s something that comes from God changing us by His Holy Spirit. We demonstrate “relative righteousness”, because we have been changed by God’s absolute righteousness. When we face adversity or hardship, we demonstrate “relative perseverance” or “temporary perseverance”, because we have been impacted by God’s Perfect Permanent perseverance. The perseverance that we see that guarantees our salvation also helps us persevere when we face temporary hardships. Paul writes, in Galatians 6:9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
When we feel weary, we can remember God is faithful and will take us the rest of the way. When we are weary, we don’t even need to muster up strength, all we need to do is acknowledge our weariness pray, and ask God who can’t grow weary to strengthen us and fill us with his grace and mercy.