YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT Part 5: PERSEVERANCE

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT Part 5: PERSEVERANCE

“Rhythm of Life” Series

JUST STAY PUT!

CONNECT Have you ever wanted to cut and run from something? Quit? Give up?

TENSION I have. There have been some key times in my life that I just gave up. Do you know what happened? Nothing. Every time I gave up, nothing happened. The things I wanted to happen, didn’t happen. They may not have happened anyway, but one thing is certain, when I quit all chance of my hopes being fulfilled was over.

SOLUTION All of us are tempted to quit and give up sometimes. I just want to encourage you today to never give up the fight!

INSTRUCTION 2 Peter 1:6 (NKJV) to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness,

Today I want to talk about perseverance. Many synonyms used in other translations: patience, steadfastness, endurance, temperance, passionate patience…

Greek: to remain, to tarry, to wait. It comes from a military root meaning to stay behind and guard the position.  As we grow in God, sometimes we just have to hunker down, stay put, and wait.  Jesus illustrated this in a parable found only in the Gospel of Mark.

Mark 4:26–29 (NKJV) And He said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

The basic lesson of this parable is that in the Kingdom of God the seed we sow will grow without our help into a great harvest. So, don’t give up. Just wait and watch it happen.

Galatians 6:9 (NKJV) And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

James 5:7–8 (NKJV) Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

APPLICATIONS

1.    Sow your seed. Seed is any act of obedience to God’s direction: prayer, faith, giving, ministry…

God gives us seed to sow. If we lack seed, there is a problem.

We hoarded it.  This parable says that the seed had to be scattered.

We ate it.  We used it on our own pleasures. 

We misused it. If we don’t sow, we can’t reap.

2.  Let the seed grow on its own as you go about your life.

Let me share with you a very profound truth: Don't dig up your seed!

If you dig up your seed, you can’t reap. What would you think if a farmer went out everyday and dug up his seed to see if it was growing? Now sometimes a farmer will dig up one or two to check for germination, but not the whole crop!

How do you dig up your seed?

         Impatience (going to Plan B).  

         Thinking I missed God.

         Not nurturing the soil.  The farmer went about his daily chores!

         Not recognizing the progression in growth: blade, head, grain.

         We don’t wait for the full fruit to come.

INSPIRATION The Bible is full of encouragement to stand fast and wait on God.

Psalms 27:13–14 (NKJV) I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait on the LORD; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!

Isaiah 40:28–31 (NKJV) Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, The Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Habakkuk 2:3 (NKJV) For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

 Hebrews 10:35–39 (NKJV) Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: “For yet a little while, And He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.

ILLUSTRATION

George Mallory and Mt. Everest in the 1920s…

INVITATION

What is the Everest you are facing?  
Caleb: "I want that mountain!"
What is the dream you have nurtured that has never come true?  What seeds are barren in your life?

God is here today to make that seed grow again, live again.  He can make that ember that is slowly dying in your heart to burst into flames again!  My experience in Alabama...