Hello, and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now, come along.
Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.
Every weight part of endurance is getting your life to a place where
you can just serve God and not be tied up with the things of this
world.
A little while back, I got into running, endurance running,
and I enjoy it.
It's like torture because I hate doing it.
But then once I'm doing it, I'm like, I love it.
I got to keep doing it, okay?
It's that kind of thing.
And so part of running is you want to shed as much as you can of
weight, right?
So I don't want to be putting a ten pound pack on if I don't have
to.
I want the lightest shoes that I can find.
I want to remove any distractions.
I don't want to eat a big meal before I go out.
Fettuccine Alfredo right before I go run 10 miles is probably
not a good plan.
Okay?
That's gonna weigh me down.
It's gonna give me some carbs, but it's not gonna be good, right?
And so what the Bible says is that as we're running this life of
endurance, we have to remove these weights.
And sometimes those weights can come from outside sources, but
sometimes those weights can come from the inside.
My own thoughts, my own desires, my own sinful lusts that
are in my life.
And you know what?
I can't serve other people if I'm serving myself.
I can't serve the Lord if I'm serving myself.
And so what we have to do as a Christian is part of the endurance,
is this dying to self and realizing that it's all about my
testimony for Jesus Christ.
It's all about him.
It's all about pushing forward for him and not myself.
So that's what Paul is talking about here.
But then he goes on to say this, okay, so he says, protect your
testimony, but what kind of testimony are you supposed to have?
Well, you see there in verse four, he says, but in all things,
approving ourselves as ministers of the gospel, as servants,
he says, the focus is being a servant in much patience.
It starts right there with patience.
So I want you to see point number two.
Point number one was protecting your testimony, but point
number two is a testimony of patience.
So Paul's first qualification for living this life of being a minister
of the Gospel, of a successful minister of the gospel, we would
think it would be preaching loudly, boldness, courageous.
No.
What does he say?
He says, patience.
Patience.
Now, this patience is a little bit different than our patience.
Okay?
Anytime you see in the King James, patience, it's talking about
endurance.
It's not just about waiting.
It's actually an active idea of pushing forward.
And so endurance, now, anytime you see the word long suffering in
scripture, that's patience.
And so there is a time where we need to just wait and be still.
But that's not this type of patience.
So a lot of people think, well, you know, as a Christian, it
calls me to be patient, so I'm just gonna sit down and wait for
things to come to me.
That's not what this type of patience is.
The greek word is endurance.
Pushing forward consistently, even if it doesn't feel like I wanna
move forward, it's that it's continuing on.
It's being steadfast in our faith.
And so we often think of patience as a passive thing, the
ability to sit around and wait for something to happen.
But no, that's not the idea here.
Paul says it's an act of endurance instead of a passive waiting.
I want you to go with me to Hebrews chapter twelve.
We started there this morning, but this is a great passage of scripture
that speaks of this idea of patience.
Endurance, he says, wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about
with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every
weight.
We already discussed what that means.
Remove anything from our life that might be holding us back, and
the sin which does so easily beset us.
And so he says, remove that sin from your life.
Don't allow that sin to dictate your life.
And let us run the race.
Let us run with patience.
Now, how can you run and sit around and not do anything, right?
That's a contradiction, right?
So he's saying, run with endurance.
And so what we're seeing here as a Christian is that part of the
walk, or in this case, the race, is to run with endurance.
Now, part of having endurance is pushing through even when you
don't feel like going forward.
I can tell you there are days where I'm running that I'm thinking,
okay, just one more mile.
Just gotta get through one more mile and then I'll quit.
Then one more mile, right?
You just gotta keep going.
There's days where I wake up and I don't wanna run.
Okay, there's days when I wake up and I say, okay, this is just
not, there's no point to this.
I don't wanna do this today.
And I try to use every excuse to not go out and run.
Well, look at the weather.
Well, look, you know, I just got this and this and this on my
plate.
I gotta do this.
And the truth is, is that I could not do it.
But then ultimately what I could think about is this.
It's the greater purpose.
Now for me, it's a silly purpose.
Like, I got a race coming up and I gotta get in shape for that.
But for us as christians, there's a bigger purpose.
There's a bigger purpose.
And so there's days where we might wake up and we say, you know
what?
I don't wanna run the race today.
I don't wanna serve Jesus today.
But we gotta go back to thinking this.
There's something bigger, there's something better.
And we see what that is.
It says, looking unto Jesus, verse number two of Hebrews twelve.
He says, you don't look to yourself in the race.
You don't look to yourself when it comes to serving God in this
patience, in this endurance.
He says, who do you look to, looking unto Jesus, the author and
finisher of our faith.
So we looked at Jesus, who was the one who was the starter of our
faith, the one who created our faith and the one who finishes it.
He says, you looked at Jesus because Paul's a good example, but
the greatest example is Jesus.
It says here, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured
the cross.
So Jesus is the greatest example of endurance because he said,
you know what?
This is what I'm going to do.
I'm going to go to the cross.
Now we know the struggle that was going on in Jesus heart and his
mind during this time, right?
He was asking the Lord Father, if there's any other way, let this
cup pass from me.
God says, no, this is the way to go.
Jesus endured that, and it says that he did it with joy.
And so what we understand here as christians is that there's going
to be times where we don't feel like pushing forward.
But what does the Bible say is true success?
Well, you could go to one corinthians, chapter four.
One Corinthians, chapter four, verse two, tells us truly what is
success when it comes to being a servante.
It's not praise, it's not power, it's not painlessness, it's
faithfulness.
First Corinthians, chapter four, verse two.
He says, moreover, it is required in stewards, we are all
stewards.
We are all just managers of God's grace in our life and the message
of grace.
Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful,
faithful, patient.
These are not things that are attractive.
I've heard people say, I don't want to pray for patience because
God's going to send me things.
Let me just tell you something.
God's going to send you things either way.
Just a matter of how you want to take it.
Do you want to take it with patience and endurance or do you
want to take it with bitterness and prideful thinking
and selfishness?
And so why do we need endurance?
Well, let's go back to two corinthians, chapter six.
Paul says, it's all wrapped up in endurance.
It's all wrapped up in faithfulness.
You want to be a faithful steward of God.
You want to be a faithful messenger of the message of the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
Well, this is what you need.
You need patience, endurance, because things are going to happen.
Now Paul is going to list three groups of three difficulties.
So if you do your math, three of three would be nine.
So he's going to list nine difficulties here, okay?
Three of them are gonna be difficulties that come for everybody.
This is just the difficulties of life, general difficulties that
we will all face that are gonna tempt us to quit.
Then he's gonna talk about three difficulties that come from
other people, the outsiders, people that are naysayers in our
life, people that hate the message of the gospel, people that
hate us because we're followers of Jesus Christ.
And then he's gonna talk about three struggles that he brings upon
himself.
Because lest we think that all the struggles come from other places,
we also have to understand that sometimes the struggles come
within our own life, within our own problems.
And so he's gonna list three groups of three in why we need endurance.
So let's look at it here in verse number four.
He says, you have to have patience in much patience or endurance.
And so the first thing he lists here is afflictions.
Afflictions, okay, afflictions are essentially this.
Afflictions are trials.
These are the general struggles of life.
These are things that are going to happen to everybody in this
world, and it's just a matter of how you see them as they come.
And so in this case, affliction would be, it could be
anything.
It could be a painful affliction that you face in your
life.
It could be someone's mistreated you.
It could just be the struggles of getting older.
He says, hey, there's going to be afflictions that we all face that
could tempt us to quit.
There could be a struggle in our life that could tempt us to quit.
Really, the word here is burden.
It's like a burden or a pressure that's put upon you.
That's really.
The original language is thought here.
An affliction would be a pressure in your life, and pressures
can come from all different places.
It could come from the workplace.
It could come from your home life.
It could come from weather that's coming in a hurricane.
It could come from any different direction.
He says, one of the things that's gonna cause us to doubt, one
of the things that's gonna cause us to think about quitting
would be the pressures of this world.
I encourage you to think about that.
I encourage you to think about your perspective in the pressure.
Sometimes people think, well, let me just avoid the pressure.
Truth is that if we try to squiggle out all the pressure in
our life, we're just gonna go and find somewhere else where there's
pressure.
Pressure is everywhere in our life.
And so he's speaking of these afflictions, and that would be pressure.
But then we see more.
He says, in necessities.
In necessities.
These would just be like regular hardships that we face, similar
to pressures, but hardships that we might face in other areas.
And then he says here, in distresses or calamities, things
that are outside of our control.
Calamities that happen.
And so ultimately, we could summarize this in as negative circumstances.
Negative circumstances are going to tempt you to quit.
Negative circumstances are going to tempt you not to wake up
in the morning and have the endurance that God has you to have.
You're going to say, well, this and this and this.
You know, it goes back to that analogy of me running, right?
Oh, the weather.
Oh, I had a, you know, I'm tired today.
I have a sore here.
There's all these different things that we could think about
and excuses to say that this is a reason why I want to stop.
Okay.
I can sit down with any person that's been serving in Middletown
Baptist church, and you could give me a reason why you were tempted
to quit.
I.
This person didn't like me.
This person said something against me.
We're gonna talk about that here in a few moments.
But you could just say, hey, look, the doors were closing.
Circumstances were happening.
So I'm just gonna quit.
I'm just gonna quit.
We've seen so many people walk away from church because of circumstances,
things that are bigger, things that are not issues that they have
caused in their own life or other people that have caused.
It's just been general struggles.
But then we see more here.
Verse five.
These are the difficulties that come from other places.
People, people problems.
Let me tell you, if you're in the ministry, which again, remember,
if you're a Christian, you're in the ministry, you are going to
have people problems.
It's going to be.
It's real.
Paul had people problems.
He had people that he was ministering to that had issues.
And not only did they have issues, but they had issues with
him.
And so if they have issues with him, they have problems with
him and they're going to cause problems for him.
And so let's see what his issues were to.
Let's see if they're as bad as the issues that you face.
Okay.
His first issue in stripes.
Say, what's a stripe?
He got beat.
That's what it's talking about here.
He got whipped.
People literally took whips and whipped him and rods and whipped
him.
He says, I have stripes, I have scars, I have sores on my body
from people hurting me.
He says, that's going to happen in stripes.
In imprisonment, Paul was thrown in prison for doing the right
thing.
Paul was mistreated for doing the right thing.
Paul was removed from his, from his church family because of
the right thing.
And so in imprisonment, then he says here in tumults, which isn't
a word that we use quite frequently, but it would be like
riots.
Okay, so there's been riots following his ministry.
You remember that they chased him out of town.
It would be uprisings against him, mobs, if you will.
So he says, there's going to be things that people do to me that
are going to cause me to quit.
Now for us.
I don't think any of us here in Middletown Baptist Church have
ever had someone physically hurt us for serving the Lord.
Okay, maybe some of you have, I don't know, maybe some of you were
in other places and someone physically hurt you.
But we know that that's not just the physical thing that causes
us to quit.
Sometimes it's when people hurt you emotionally.
Maybe they say something against you.
Maybe they give you a side eye when you do something in ministry.
Maybe they talk about you behind your back to somebody else.
Doesn't justify what they're doing, but it's not a reason for
us to quit.
Paul says you need endurance for when people hurt you.
Let me tell you, there is going to be people that hurt you
within ministry.
There's going to be people that hurt you.
There's going to be people that hurt your family.
There's going to be people that say things about you negatively.
And that could be a reason for many people, and it has been a reason
for many people to say, I'm just done with God.
Now, I'm not saying that it means that you can't leave a church
because of hardship in that area.
And I'm gonna tell you here today, there are times where you
might need to separate yourself from someone who is harming
you in that way, but never separate yourself from God.
Don't conflate God's love and other people's hurt and say, you
know what?
If God loves me, how could he hurt me?
He's not hurting you.
It's the people and their sin that are hurting you.
And so Paul doesn't blame God for his stripes.
He doesn't blame God for his imprisonments.
He doesn't blame God for the mobs.
He says, Lord, this is why I need endurance.
And so you could summarize all of these struggles in persecution
or disorder.
Persecution or disorder, folks, you're gonna face these things,
the general struggles, the general pressures.
You're gonna face people problems.
But then he says here in group three, and a lot of people would
read this and skim right over this and not think about what he's
really saying here.
But I believe that he's bringing up issues that he has brought
upon himself.
Okay, so he says, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in
labors, essentially, what he's saying is, in working overworking.
He says, I've gotten so tired of overworking myself that I need
to be remembering the endurance that God has called me
to have some of us overwork ourselves in the ministry.
Some of us say, you know what?
If I can just do one more thing or if I can start one more
ministry?
And so he says, sometimes we overwork ourselves with good intentions
but get to a place in our life where we want to quit.
These are all things in our life that tempt us to quit.
One thing would be just overworking ourselves.
The other phrase that you could put with this is being burnt
out.
You've heard this a lot.
I'm just burnt out.
In ministry, there's a time and a place for a rest.
There is a time and a place to manage what God has for you in your
life.
And sometimes we overwork ourselves.
I'm sitting up here as one of the constant offenders of this, okay?
I overwork myself to the place where I say, if I can just write
one more sermon, Jesus will love me just a little bit more.
Folks, that's not how it works.
God doesn't love you more by the more you serve him.
He loves you infinitely because he sent his only begotten
son for you.
God loves you so, so much.
He's already proven his love.
You don't have to do more for him to love you more.
That's sometimes what people teach.
Sometimes people teach, well, if you love Jesus, keep loving, and
then if you serve more, he'll love you more.
That's not how it works, okay?
That's an empty pit, because how can we all love him as much as
he's loved us?
We can't.
And so we will always fail in that.
You ever seen people say, well, yeah, I've just failed God
so many times.
The truth is, yes, we all fail God.
We fail God every single day.
But he still loves us.
And so we say, I don't do this out of gaining more love from God.
I do this because of God's infinite love in my life.
And so he's talking about motives here.
So he says, don't overwork, because that overworking will cause
us to get to this place where we think it's all about us.
So he says, in labors.
And then he says, here in the king James, in watchings, you say,
what is he talking about?
It's essentially him saying, sleeplessness, missing sleep for
his work.
He says, I've been sleepless.
Now, we could argue that other people doing things to him has caused
him not to sleep.
Or we could maybe even argue.
Maybe he had some kind of medical condition where he couldn't
sleep.
But essentially, we all are kind of in control of what we do
with our sleep.
Now, we could argue that.
Some people could argue, I want a sleep pastor, but I can't.
Okay.
In this case, I believe he's talking about issues, that he's missing
sleep for his service of God, traveling and whatever.
So he says, sleeplessness, fastings, and hunger.
That's what he's saying here in this case.
So after watching, he says, in fastings, well, obviously, he's the
one that decides whether or not he eats.
And so there are times where he's saying that he's working so
hard, he's skipping his meals.
And so there are things in our life that we can actually do that
can cause us to get to a place where we want to quit.
We can mismanage what God has for us in our life to a place where
we're so overwhelmed that we say, you know what?
It's just not worth it.
And we give up.
We don't have the endurance.
And so we see these three groups of struggles, and certainly
these are real things that all of us could probably identify with
in some way in our lives.
But then Paul lists three groups of blessings that come with
the christian life rooted in a life of endurance.
I want you to cross reference this passage with Galatians chapter
six.
Some of you know Galatians chapter six, verse nine.
Galatians six nine says, and let us not be weary in well doing,
for in due season we shall reap.
If we faint, nothing.
So the Bible says, don't quit, because sometimes the blessings,
sometimes the fruit comes later on after we display faith and
endurance in our life and patience in our life.
And so Paul is going to tell us here in this next section, in
two Corinthians chapter six, that, yes, there are going to be
difficulties that tempt you to quit.
There's going to be difficulties that put pressure upon
you, but there's blessings in the endurance through those issues.
And so go with me to two Corinthians chapter six, go back.
And he's gonna list now the blessings, because what if he just
stopped there?
He says, okay, you're gonna have pressure, you're gonna have
persecution, you're gonna have problems in your own life.
You're gonna have people problems.
So just have endurance and get through it.
That's sometimes how I was taught.
Just keep going 1ft before the other life is gonna be miserable,
but you just gotta keep on with it.
Keep on keeping on.
Truth is, though, that's never how God leaves us.
God doesn't leave us in the problem and say, figure it out on
your own, just keep going.
He says, no, there's blessings in the midst of endurance.
There's blessings here.
God has not come to give us a miserable life.
He's come to give us life and life more abundantly.
You say, well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
You're contradicting yourself.
You just listed all the struggles of ministry, and now you're
saying you can have a good life.
Yes, you can have a good life in spite of the difficulties.
That's what Paul had.
And so what we see here in second Corinthians chapter six, he
says, okay, so these are all the problems.
Here's the three groups of problems.
Now.
Here's the three groups of blessings by pureness, pureness,
purity.
He says, in the life of Christ, you can have purity in your
lives.
Folks, sometimes in our culture today, that word purity is
so misunderstood.
Our world today is the opposite of purity.
Purity is living not just with the right intentions, but living
with the right actions before God.
Purity, he says, so we can have purity in endurance.
We can live lives of purity.
We can live life separated.
Going back to that idea of being a testimony.
How can I be a testimony?
Live a life of purity.
It's not your own purity.
It's a purity of God in your life.
And then he goes on to say more.
He says, in pureness by knowledge.
What kind of knowledge is this?
Well, this is the knowledge of God.
We're gonna get there in a second with the word of truth.
But he says, having knowledge of God.
So the more that we are enduring the difficulties, the more
knowledge of God that we can have in our lives.
And that knowledge of God brings us strength, and that knowledge
of God brings us faith.
Because the Bible says faith cometh by hearing and hearing by
the word of God.
And so we get the knowledge of God in our lives, and then we see
here by long suffering.
Long suffering would be patience.
And so we actually receive patience in this.
So as we're enduring, we receive patience.
Patience is a good thing to have.
We're all probably at some way in our life struggling with that
patience.
But ultimately, what the Bible says is that we can have purity,
we can have knowledge, we can have this long suffering or patience.
And then we see the second group by kindness.
Okay?
The Bible tells us that as a Christian, we can live a life characterized
by kindness.
As Ephesians chapter four says, being tender hearted, forgiving
one another.
The Bible says, Christians, as Christians, we should be kind.
Kindness should be a fruit of our relationship with God.
How many Christians are not characterized by their kindness?
They're characterized by their anger.
I'm just gonna be.
Let's be real this morning, okay?
How many character, how many people that are Christians proclaiming
christians, if you spent 20 minutes with them, you'd say, wow,
that guy's pretty angry.
He's pretty angry with what's going on today in politics.
He's pretty angry about what's going on in his workplace.
If we're only characterized by our anger.
Now, I know where some of you are going, pastor.
I know I'm allowed to sin.
I'm allowed to be angry and sin nothing.
Yes, I believe there is an area for righteous indignation against
the wrongs of evil.
It's okay to be angry at sin, okay?
But this is anecdotal.
But in my experience, most of us are not angry at sin predominantly.
We're more angry at our own ego being hurt or someone doing something
that makes us Madden, something that's displacing us from
our life that we think we should have.
And so many times we're not characterized by kindness.
We're characterized by anger and bitterness.
So he says, kindness, but you would say, okay, so what you're telling
me now is that if I keep pushing forward on my own, I can
live a life of purity, knowledge, long suffering, or patience
and kindness?
Well, I think I could do that.
Let me tell you, you can't do that on your own.
Because what does he say here?
The next thing?
And I love how he inserts it right in the middle.
I would have put it at the front, but Paul puts it right in
the middle.
He says here by the Holy Ghost, meaning you can't do any of
these things unless the Holy Ghost is living within you and directing
you.
You can serve yourself or you can serve the spirit.
You can feed the flesh or you can feed the spirit of.
And the Bible says the only way that you can do these things
and have purity in your life and kindness in your life and all
of these things that are the blessings of endurance.
The only way that you can have endurance in and of itself is by
the Holy Ghost living within you and leading you in your life.
The Holy Ghost, it's all based in the Holy Spirit.
And so he says, it's by the Holy Ghost.
And then through that comes unfeigned love.
Love.
Unfeigned meaning authentic love.
So he says, a life of endurance through difficulty can
be characterized by pureness, knowledge, long suffering, kindness,
true love by the Holy Spirit.
Through the Holy Spirit.
Now, I want to stop there just for a moment and talk about what
that unfeigned love really is.
Unfeigned love.
Is that agape love?
It's true love.
Now, you know, you watch a Disney movie and they'll say, true
love.
That's not what this is talking about.
It's talking about authentic love that backs up what it says.
And so as a Christian, we can say, I love you.
Love you, brother.
Love ya.
But do we?
That's the question.
And we actually see here that it's not an inconvenience.
Paul lists this in the blessings.
So actually loving other people within the church is a blessing
that we receive by walking in faith with God.
Sometimes we don't see loving others as a blessing.
We see loving others as an inconvenience.
The Bible says, no, we should be excited to love one another.
And I encourage you to think about this here today.
In the midst of ministry, in the midst of conflict, in the midst
of people maybe coming against you, in the midst of our own struggles,
in our own life, we have to be characterized by that love.
It's not a sappy love that's empty and romantic.
That's not what this is talking about.
It's not a love that condones.
It's not a love that celebrates sin.
It's the opposite.
If I love my children, I will not celebrate their sin.
I will call it out.
I will address it, I will discipline it.
I will say, guys, this is not good.
I love you, and I'm telling you that this is not good.
That should be how it is within the midst of the church.
Folks, there's been people that have said this.
If someone walks into our church building that has a different
lifestyle than we have, don't ever let them in, folks.
How are they ever going to hear the truth of Jesus Christ and
change from where they are to where they need to be?
But we don't accept it where it is.
So, yes, come as you are, believe changed.
We accept anybody to come into this building to hear the gospel
of Jesus Christ, okay?
And if you don't like that, I think it's biblical.
I know it's biblical.
Okay?
Now there are some security things, okay?
Someone comes in and they're like, hey, I'm gonna hurt everybody.
That's another whole thing.
I'm talking about just someone coming in with a different lifestyle
than we have.
We don't celebrate that, though.
We don't go, hey, come on in.
Yeah, just stay as you are.
No, we want to preach Jesus Christ to them.
That's unfeigned love.
Now, you would say, well, they become a member.
No, becoming a member is different.
There's a public testimony with that, that there's a responsibility
there to not be a person that's living in unrepentant sin.
But for someone to come and hear the gospel of Jesus Christ,
we have to love them, but not condone, not celebrate sin.
So, like, say, for example, a husband and wife come to me in the
church, and the husband goes, hey, you know, I'm really having
a hard time being faithful to my wife.
Okay?
I'm a believer in Jesus Christ, or I'm not a believer in
Jesus Christ.
Either way, what do I say to him?
I say, well, I love you, brother, so just do what you want
to do.
Okay?
I'll celebrate you.
Sorry.
Sorry, ma'am.
You know, I'll celebrate you too, but I gotta.
You see the cognitive dissonance there, the mental.
I have to say, I love you, brother, but that's wrong.
Let's do everything that we can, according to scripture to get
you to a place where you can stay faithful to your wife and faithful
to God.
There's nothing hateful about that.
There's nothing evil about that.
And a lot of times in the world today, they'll say, if you
love someone, you gotta be okay with what they're doing.
That's nothing.
What the Bible says, so unfeigned love.
Our lives should be characterized by unfeigned, unhypocritical
love.
The Bible says in Romans, chapter twelve, love without dissimulation,
which you're like, what's dissimulation?
That's hypocrisy.
Don't love with hypocritical intentions.
Okay, so there's that.
The unfeigned love.
But then the last group of three here, he says, this is kind
of how we can get to these places.
So he says it's in the Holy Spirit.
But then he says in verse seven, by the word of truth.
The only way that we can ever understand all of these things is
through the word of truth.
What's the word of truth?
It's the word of God.
Colossians, chapter one.
Colossians, chapter one, verse five tells us about this word of
truth.
It says, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof
ye have heard before in the word of truth.
Of the gospel.
It is the gospel.
You cannot do any of this outside of knowing and believing
and trusting in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
All of this is wrapped up in having a gospel ministry.
What is the gospel?
The gospel is simply this.
That Jesus Christ came to this earth, died on the cross for our
sins, was buried three days later.
He rose from the grave.
He conquered death through the resurrection.
And now he's ruling and reigning and allowing us to receive
the gift of grace that he has extended to us.
That is the gospel.
So he says, to do all of this, to understand what it means to be
a minister of the gospel, to have endurance, to live a life of
purity, to live a life of kindness, to live a life of love,
we must be based, as it says there in verse seven, by the word
of truth.
It is not by the word of Pastor Josh.
It's not by the word of some church.
It's not by the word of the world.
It's by the word of truth.
The word of truth is God's word.
Jesus is the word.
And so ultimately we preach the gospel.
People need the gospel.
People need the gospel to get saved, and people need the gospel
to grow in their faith.
We must be a gospel preaching church, not a works based church.
Okay?
So what it can look like is this, come to our church, you gotta
make sure that you do this, this, this.
Then you can get saved.
And then after you do this, this, this, and this, then you can
do this.
Okay.
The truth is, is that if we start laying out all these rules
that are not in the word of God, we've gotten ourselves out of
whack.
We've mistaken what God has called us to live in.
We don't live a list of rules.
We live a life of the gospel.
The life of the gospel will change us away from those things
of this world.
But all of you can follow a list to a certain degree.
Let's have another hypothetical guy come in here.
Hypothetical guy comes in, he says, I want to be a Christian.
What do I say?
Do I give him the gospel or do I say, well, this is what it looks
like to be a Christian.
How do I start?
Okay, start with the gospel, because I could tell the guy, okay,
well, all you got to do is look this way.
Don't say these words.
Say these words.
Don't take this in your body, but put this in your body.
Make sure.
So he's got a list here.
He's got like a 55 checkbox list.
And he says, okay, I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning, I'm
going to try to do all these.
That does not make him a Christian.
Could he do some of the things on that list?
Yeah, okay, I'm not going to say that word anymore.
I know that's not a good word to say, but guess what happens?
He might get upset that day and say a bad word.
Oh, man, now I'm not a Christian.
You see the flaw in list keeping.
And so many times we want to say, well, pastor, are we just supposed
to let him go?
Are we supposed to just let him get saved and not know?
Then we preach the gospel and then we get the gospel deeply rooted
in his heart.
And then we say, hey, here's what the Bible says about purity.
Here's what the Bible says about grace.
Here's what the Bible says about forgiveness.
And so we work that way with them.
It's always in the word of truth.
We can sometimes do this.
This Bible is good.
But then we have other things we want to add onto it.
This Bible is great, but we want to add some more in there.
And you say, we don't do that.
Come on.
We have all been there.
We have all said, I can't point you into the Bible.
But that is.
I don't like that.
Okay, well, the truth is that sometimes we have to be careful with
that and not putting those things outside of scripture, in front
of scripture.
And so he says, we do this by the word of truth.
Then he says, what?
By the power of God.
So we have the word of truth by the power of God, and then through
the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand
and on the left.
Now, you know the armor of God.
You know the armor of righteousness.
This is what he's saying.
He says, God has given us everything that we need through the
word, through the power of God, through the Holy Spirit, to
arm ourselves with all the tools that we need to do the work
of the ministry, to have endurance, to lay aside every weight.
And so, yes, Paul is the example here in this passage, but
we know in a greater way it's Jesus.
It is the word of God.
It is the power of God.
And it is the armor of God and the resources of God that he gives
us to go about our daily walk.
And so if you're tempted to say, you know what?
I want to quit today, or maybe not today, but I was willing to quit
yesterday, or I might be willing to quit next week, the Bible
says that we have a power that's living within us.
I want you to see point number three.
And this is the last point.
So we have protect the testimony.
We have the testimony of patience.
And then lastly here, the power of truth.
The truth of what?
The truth of God.
The truth of God is found in his word.
The truth of God is seen through his power in our life.
And the truth of God can be seen manifested by those tools that
God gives us in the armor of God, in the armor of righteousness.
It's not our righteousness.
It's his righteousness.
And so we've got this understanding of.
To be a person of endurance, we must protect our testimony.
We must understand that there is this testimony of patience in
our life that has to characterize our life, that testimony
of endurance.
And then lastly, we have to be driven by the power of truth, the
power of God.
And so we see him ending it here in verse number seven.
At least this thought, he's gonna pick it up in verse eight,
which we're gonna talk about next week.
But he ends it here in the armor of righteousness on the right
hand and on the left.
Now, you can look at this from two different perspectives, right
and left, meaning he's got us on every side.
But then I've also heard some commentators say that this means
that you have the defensive side.
The defensive side used to be the left side, and you had the offensive
side, which was the right side.
If you were right handed, you were attacking with the right, you
were defending with the left.
The Bible says that God has us in his armor, not only through the
defensive, but also on the offensive.
We know that some of those armors, the elements of the armor
of God, was defensive, is defensive and also offensive.
And so we can see here that God has got us.
He has got us under control.
He's given us everything that we need to protect ourselves from
the enemy and ultimately allowing God to protect us from the
enemy, but then also attacking the evil, attacking the difficulties,
attacking those naysayers.
And so what the Bible tells us here in this case is, as we want
to live a life of endurance, we have to really do a couple things.
One, to understand what our goal is.
Number two, to understand where our power is, and then number
three, to understand what the goal is at the end, the eternal purpose.
So our goal, our power and our purpose.
And so what is our purpose?
Well, we know the purpose ultimately is to glorify God and
to preach the message of the gospel.
Hebrews chapter twelve.
Lay aside every weight.
Run the race with endurance.
Run the race with patience.
Folks, I don't know about you, but you might be running the race
right now, but you've got all of the baggage of this world, and
you're like, I just can't go any further.
I can't go any further with the general struggles that I'm facing.
I can't go any further with the problems that people are bringing
to me in my life.
I can't go any farther with the problems that I have in my own
life that I'm bringing upon myself.
The Bible says that there's victory over that.
And that is what does verse number two say of Hebrews chapter
twelve?
Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher.
Folks, it's never too late.
If you're taking in breath, it's never too late for you to lay
aside those weights and keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and run
that race with patience.
Run that race with endurance.
Some of you might say I'm not running like I used to.
Okay, man, back in the day when I first got saved, I was running
at a five minute pace on that mile I was moving.
Then over time, you know what?
I'm stumbling.
Well, the Bible doesn't say that we have to run as fast as we
can every single time.
I can tell you what, if you ever see me out there running, you
can tell where I'm at on my pace of running.
If I'm running really quickly, I've just got started.
If I'm running and I'm limping and it looks like I'm like a different
color, okay?
It could be really red or it could be like white.
Who knows what's going on out there?
It might be that I'm towards the end, okay?
But I'm pushing, right?
I'm pushing.
And the cases with running is this.
There are going to be times where we're tempted to quit, and
we have every reason to quit in the world's perspective.
But the Bible says no, we go, we race to that finish line.
We're pushing forward.
And when we're tempted to quit, when we have all these areas
of difficulties in our life that are stacking up, we don't think
about those difficulties.
What do we do?
We think about those blessings.
We think about the purity that can come through the holy spirit.
We think about that kindness, that love.
We think about, ultimately the power of God, the truth of God, and
that armor that God has given us.
And we say, you know what?
The purpose is that one day I will be with my savior.
I'm an ambassador for now.
I'm a pilgrim in this world.
But ultimately I'm going to be sitting with my savior face to face.
And that is why I'm going forward today.
One more day.
And just keep pushing forward one step before the other.
But it's not in our own strength.
It's in the power of God.
And so I don't know about you, but maybe you're the one this morning,
like, I've been tempted to quit.
Tempted just to stop and say, you know what?
It's not worth it.
I don't have any more endurance.
I'm tired.
I'm weary.
The Bible says, don't get weary.
And well doing for in due season, right?
It's in his time.
You will reap if you faint not.
The Bible says in Hebrews, chapter eleven, verse six, it's impossible
to please God without faith.
Why?
Because we have to believe that he is and that he is a rewarder
of them that diligently seek him.
Folks, we have to believe that God is going to reward us for our
faithfulness.
If not, why are we doing anything that we're doing?
If I didn't believe that there is a heaven one day and I didn't
believe that there's rewards, and I didn't believe that God is
going to get me through this, why do anything that we're doing?
Might as well live for myself.
Might as well live for my flesh.
Might as well live for the almighty dollar.
Might as well get as many toys as I can now.
But the Bible says that there is something different.
There is a bigger purpose.
There is a finish line.
And I'm gonna tell you this, folks, when you cross that finish
line, that's when it all begins.
That's when the blessings really start pouring out.
The rewards, the presence of God, the painlessness, right?
One day there will be painlessness.
One day we're all just gonna be sitting there with God and there's
not gonna be any more problems.
But not yet.
Not yet.
There's still going to be struggles, and we have to push forward
to the end.
I'm going to tell you this.
We're going to be tempted to quit.
But what we have to do is we have to say, lord, I know that it's
worth it.
I know that living for myself is not the right way to go.
I know that my flesh is lying to me.
I know that the enemy is lying to me.
And the travesty of all of this is that we have christians who
say that they believe in heaven.
We have christians who say that they tasted of the grace of
God, but yet are living in the same way that the world lives.
Living for now, why on earth would we live for the here and now
when we know that we've got something else in eternity?
Let me just tell you right now, folks, it's going to be worth
it.
The Bible says that it will be worth it all when we see Jesus.
And so what is this message about today?
This message is the example of endurance.
Paul is an example of endurance.
But ultimately, it was Jesus.
He endured the cross because he loves us.
Are we willing to endure this short time on this earth because
we love him?
He endured the cross for you.
Are we willing to endure the temporary discomfort in the short
amount of time so that we can show, demonstrate, manifest the love
of God in our lives?
I hope that is your testimony here this morning.
I'm gonna ask everyone to stand, if you're able to, with me,
every head bowed, every eye closed.
As the music plays this morning.
I want you to think about that message of endurance.
Am I protecting my testimony?
Or am I living such a way that my obstacles are holding me back
from people coming to Christ?
Am I living a life of sacrifice and of service so that
people can see the goodness of Jesus Christ in my life?
Or number 02:00 a.m.
i willing to live a life of endurance?
Am I willing to have that testimony of patience?
Or am I focused on those struggles that were listed in scripture
so much that I can't focus on the blessings?
You're really going to be able to only look at one are you going
to look at the struggles?
Is that going to characterize you?
Or are you going to be characterized by that second list,
the word of truth, the power of God, the armor of righteousness?
Are you willing to say, I'm trusting in the power of truth today
to push me forward?
Or am I trusting in the lies of this world, the flaws of my flesh,
the emptiness of materialism to define my reason to move forward?
What is your reason?
What is your why?
Is it the power of truth?
Or is it the power of this world?
If it's the power of this world, you're always going to have
the why to stop.
But when you live with that eternal perspective, that eternal
perspective can give you that endurance.
And so are we going to be christians characterized by endurance?
Are we going to be christians characterized by our flesh and our
limitations?
God says that he's given us everything that we need to push forward.
And so this morning, if you need to dedicate your life to that
endurance one more mile, one more day, we need him every hour.
We need him every day.
So maybe you just need to be revitalized in your commitment to
him and your endurance.
Lord, I pray that you be in this time of invitation, working
hearts and lives.
Lord, if there's someone here today that doesn't know you as savior,
maybe today can be the day of salvation.
Maybe today can be the day of understanding what the gospel is
all about, trusting in Jesus and him alone for salvation.
If that be the case, Lord, I pray that you call hearts to come
forward this morning and to hear the truth of God through the
word.
We thank you.
I pray that you be with those folks that are challenged with the
endurance this morning.
We thank you and we love you.
In Jesus name, amen.
As the music plays, if you need to follow him this morning,
recommit your endurance.
Recommit your commitment to him.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
If you would like to find out.
More information about our church or this sermon, you can find
us@middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.
You can also email me directly@joshmissaroiddletownbaptistchurch.com.
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Thank you so much.
God bless.
Have a wonderful day.