I. Survivor theme and show description
As you can tell, tonight’s theme is Survivor. In case you don’t know, Survivor is a reality show based on someone’s ability to survive a defined amount of time in a predetermined area (jungle, isolated island, etc..). If you have ever seen the show, its more about surviving in the social sense as opposed to the physical sense. Because each contestant is eliminated by their peers mostly based on their popularity with their tribe. I think the appeal of the show is people like watching the contestants go through the highs and lows that comes with the them dealing with so many people with so many different personalities while having to deal with daily life as a castaway.
II. Up’s and Down’s of Life
But unlike the show Survivor, life is not a temporary adventure out into the unknown with a defined ending. Its an ongoing, daily grind full of highs and lows. The highs are great. The highs in life are when everything seems to be going just as we planned. You know, you are doing great in school, you and your parents are seeing eye to eye, just everything seems almost perfect. Now, the lows aren’t so great. Quite frankly, the lows stink. I don’t think anyone in this room seeks out or enjoys going through the lows in life. But God says it’s the lows in life where we learn the most.
III. Scripture
James 1:2-3, “2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Romans 5:3-4, “3Not only so, but we[c] also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope.
Lets pay special attention to the 2 verses in Romans 5 and break it down into 3 separate parts: suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope.
IV. Suffering Produces Perseverance
Its only human nature to seek the path of least resistance. I think that is a fair statement. Think about it. If there were two ways to complete a task, one being much easier than the other and both producing the same result, which would you choose? The easier one, right? Of course, most of us would choose the easier one. But life doesn’t always throw us an easy task, does it? Life doesn’t always offer that easier choice? Life doesn’t always give us multiple choice on how to get through something, but it does give us multiple choice in how we are going to respond. We can either give up claiming its too hard or we can suck it up, put our heads down and forge ahead. That’s really our only two options. God says our sufferings produce perseverance. Which it does, but only if we allow it. Wait, are you saying God is not in control? NO! God is in control, but if we give up on something just because its hard, then we are not allowing God to mold us in that situation.
God will work in a situation if we allow Him and not give Him the ole stiff arm like we are guilty of often times. When we are bogged down in a situation are we going to just throw our hands up in defeat? No, we are going to dig in, get through it, and see what God wants us to learn in the process. This is called perseverance. The actual definition of perseverance is “remaining constant to a purpose, idea, or a task in spite of the obstacles.” And that’s exactly what we all are going to do in spite of our situations or circumstances. Jefro and Mclovin, Im sure there were many mornings that you didn’t want to get up or afternoons that you didn’t want to leave the house and go to workouts this summer, weren’t there? Of course, but you did it anyway. James, there are going to be many mornings where you are not going to want to get up and go to class this fall because in college, they don’t care if you are there or not. Its not like high school where you are forced to go or they will call your parents. So, you are going to have to discipline yourself to get to class daily and appropriate enough time for your studies. Its all about keeping your eye on the prize and not allowing anything to distract you or get you off course to that prize.
V. Perseverance Builds Character
The second part of the verse is, “perseverance produces character”. When we persevere through the struggles to reach our goal, what happens? What takes place? When we persevere through our struggles-when we gut it out through the tough stuff, God is saying we grow as people and develop character. If you think about it, when we do gut it out through our difficulties and make it out on the other side, we almost always look back and realize that we learned a great deal and usually better for it. I mean, I think we all can think of a personal example of this in our own life. Here is a great story about perseverance:
A. Perseverance: Marshall University
I have told this story before so just bare with me if you have already heard it. On the way back from a tough loss to East Carolina University on November 14th, 1970, the Marshall University Thundering Herd boarded their plane headed back to campus like they had done many times before. Unfortunately just before landing, their plane went down killing everyone on board. Athletic director, coaches, players, boosters, everyone on board was gone. The only players left were a few that stayed back due to injury. After everything settled down, the administration made the decision to do away with the football program. I mean, how can you blame them. They had no athletic director to hire coaches, no coaches to recruit players, and no players to field a team. But there was one player that did not want to give up that easily, Nate Ruffin. After some time and much convincing to the school administration, they finally agreed not to cancel the program and began the process of hiring a football staff for the next season. They went through the process of hiring a staff and the staff went through the process of recruiting an entire team. The only problem was that back then the NCAA did not allow freshmen to play. Since they were starting fresh, they only had freshmen with the exception of Nate and a few others. So, they had to petition the NCAA and appeal many times before they made a special exception for them. After all that, even after all they had gone through, they only won 2 games that next season. Not much of a story book ending huh? In fact, they went on to lose more football games in the 70’s than any other football program in the nation. After all they went through, that seemed to be their reward. In 1984, they had their first winning season in 20 years and followed that with 8 conference titles, 5 straight bowl wins, and 2 national championships. What if they had decided to ditch the program? What if they weren’t willing to push on through the tough times? Look at what they would have missed out on.
VI. Character Builds Hope
I shared this story with you to give you an illustration of what it really means to persevere. Now granted, this was a pretty extreme circumstance, but I think it paints a pretty good picture for us to understand. The third and final part of the verse is, “character produces hope.” First, what is character? What is a simple definition for character? Its how you are when no one else is looking. There are a lot of things in life that we have absolutely no control over. We don’t get to choose our parents, we don’t get to choose our physical features, but we do choose our character. I want to ask you all a question and I want you to answer it in your mind. If you could cheat on a test and know for sure you wouldn’t get caught, would you do it? Think about it for a second. For those of you who answered yes, think about this. How would you benefit from cheating? Well, for one thing, you wouldn’t have to go home and spend all that time studying, right? You could instead go home and do what you wanted to and still make a good grade on the test. But what about the person that actually went home, studied, and then did well on the test? How would he benefit? Well for starters, he would have learned something, which by the way, is the reason you go to school and are tested in the first place. He would have persevered (there is that “p” word again) through the hours of study and not only received a good grade, but now when the comprehensive semester final comes up, he doesn’t have to go back and cram for that section of the test that he actually studied and learned. There were two ways to tackle this task. There was the easy way by cheating and the more difficult way by studying. They both lead to the same result, but which would you benefit from in the long run? Something to think about.
VII. Conclusion
God loves us. God loves each and every one of us. That’s why He allows us to experience trials so that we can learn from them and grow from them. That’s also why He sent His son so for those of us who believe in Him can experience the awesome grace through the blood that was shed on that cross. And if you are sitting here tonight and have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about or know what I’m talking about but don’t understand what it takes to accept Christ, lets talk.
