Encouragement to Persevere in Christ.
We are continuing in our series on Discovering Your Destiny and we are thinking about what it means to Persevere.
The Christian life is not the easy option. If we are honest, we know that there are times when we struggle to live in the way that God has commanded us to live.
Maybe in your life there have been times when you have encountered problems.
Maybe in your life there have been times when you have struggled.
Maybe in your life there have been times when you have felt like giving up.
Yet you persevered, in God’s strength you carried on, you let God’s love and mercy and grace carry you on.
When there was no hope, God was your hope.
When there seemed to be no way, God made a way.
When your strength was gone, God was your strength.
When you needed guidance and encouragement to persevere God was faithful.
God guided you through those difficult times and you persevered, you endured, you overcame, you survived, because God was with you.
Perhaps this morning you need some Encouragement to Persevere.
I want us to consider together a passage from Colossians chapter 1. Let me give you a little background first.
Paul wrote this letter to the Christians in the city of Colosse because they were in need of guidance and encouragement to persevere.
Paul’s purpose in writing Colossians was to encourage the church to focus on Jesus their Messiah, and to keep Him at the centre of their lives.
There had been a number of false preachers who had been leading the congregation astray. Their teaching was in error. They were adding their opinion and subtracting truth. The result of this false teaching was that many of the Colossians had become confused about what it really meant to live as a disciple of Christ.
So the Apostle Paul wrote to them to direct people back to the real basis of their faith in Jesus, to help them to persevere in the truth of the Gospel. Paul reminds them of the undeserved love and mercy of Father God, demonstrated in the sending of Jesus, His only begotten Son, to bear the punishment for sin.
Paul reminds them of God’s commandments and how a follower of Christ is meant to live.
The words that the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write nearly 2000 years ago are still applicable to us today.
God’s Word still gives us direction on how we are persevere in our daily walk with God.
God’s Word still tells us how we are to live our lives in a way that is worthy of our Lord’s sacrifice for us.
God’s Word gives us the strength to endure the problems and hardships of life.
God’s Word gives us the motivation to persevere by reminding us of His undeserved love, grace and mercy to us every day.
Listen to the words of Paul in Colossians 1:9-14,
So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of His will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honour and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better. We also pray that you will be strengthened with all His glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to His people, who live in the light. For He has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of His dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.
Paul’s prayer for the Colossians was they would persevere.
Persevere to understand God’s will for their lives.
Persevere to spiritual maturity.
Persevere to patiently endure hardship.
Persevere to grow in their relationship with God.
Our prayer should be the same as the Apostle Paul.
We need to persevere, we need to endure.
We need to understand God’s will and purpose for our lives.
We need to grow in spiritual maturity
We need to draw closer to Jesus.
Lets unpack these verses a little further and discover how the Apostle Paul tells us how we can persevere in our daily lives as disciples of Christ.
Colossians 1:9, We have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of His will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding.
Paul’s prayer for the Colossians is also a prayer for us. Our lives would be so different if we could fully understand God’s will and purpose for our lives. Instead of wondering, fully knowing, complete knowledge. Real spiritual maturity.
The probability is we will never fully achieve spiritual maturity, but as Paul prays here, each of us can grow in our spiritual wisdom and understanding. Each of us can persevere in growing our knowledge and understanding of God, and as we do that we will understand more and more of God’s will, purpose and plan for each of our lives.
When we come to know Jesus as our Lord and Saviour God’s purpose for us is more than us just coming to church for a few hours on a Sunday. God saved us to do more than just wait around until either He comes again or we die and go to Heaven. We were saved to help other people come to a saving knowledge of Jesus.
We are saved, God has a purpose for us, we are to grow His kingdom, we are to be fruitful for the Lord. How are we to do that? Colossians 1:10, Then the way you live will always honour and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.
Is that your desire, to live in a way that will always honour and please the Lord?
Just on a Sunday morning or every moment of every day? Walking worthy of His love. Walking worthy of His sacrifice for you. Seeking to fully please God rather than please yourself. Established in your faith. Living a life that pleases God should be our goal. Loving Him, serving Him, growing in our knowledge of Him, growing in our relationship with Him.
For us to truly live for the Lord, we must allow our lives to be directed by God. How can we know God’s direction for our lives? We can know His direction when we spend time in prayer, in worship and in reading the Word of God.
We need to persevere in seeking God so that He can reveal His will to us, His purpose to us. When we seek God then we receive spiritual wisdom and understanding from God.
Knowing God’s will is not an impossible task. God has already revealed His will in His Word. His commandments to us are that we are to love Him above everyone and everything else and love others as we love our self.
Then the way you live will always honour and please the Lord. God is Holy, we are called to be holy, righteous, faithful. Faithful to God, honouring God’s Name, and adhering to the precepts and commands of God’s Word. Every moment of our life should be consecrated to our God, our Lord, our Saviour.
We are to be loyal to our God, have no other God before Him, have no idol in place of Him, give Him first place in our lives. God is not an afterthought or an optional extra.
Our relationship with our Saviour must motivate us, move us, lead us on, empower us to live our lives for Him. Then, and only then will our lives produce every kind of good fruit and all the while, we will grow as we learn to know God better and better.
Friends, let me ask you a few questions:
In your interaction with other people, your family, your friends, do you show a selfless love of Christ?
Do you honour God in your home?
Not just by an occasion word, but by what you allow to happen.
When something happens on a TV programme that dishonours God, do you change the channel?
When you hear a song with lyrics that are obviously against the will and purpose of God do you switch it off?
When someone uses the name of Jesus as a swear word, do you object?
Do you defend and treasure the name that is above every other name?
Do others know what the name of Jesus means to you? Jesus, my saviour, my friend, my Lord, my God.
God expects us to speak the truth in love to others. Jesus has given us, given you, given me the gift of eternal life. A free gift that comes from our faith in Him as Lord and Saviour.
If Jesus is your Lord and your Saviour then all of your thoughts, all of your words, all of your actions, must seek to bring honour and glory to Him. We are children of the living God and His purpose for us is that we pursue holiness in our lives. When we serve God with honourable behaviour we please Him and our lives will bear the fruit of faith.
I said right at the start of this sermon, the Christian life is not the easy option. There are times when we struggle to live in the way that God has commanded us to live. We struggle because we try to do it in our own strength instead of in the power of God. Colossians 1:11, We also pray that you will be strengthened with all His glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need.
Strengthened and empowered by God to endure, to persevere, to grow, to mature. Empowered by God to be strong.
Empowered by God to have patience.
What? Patience, seriously... Have you ever prayed “Lord, give me patience, give it to me now!”
Spiritual maturity and patience are more connected than we realise. Part of being spiritually mature is the ability to pray and then wait upon the Lord.
To persevere, to endure, we turn to God for strength. In all of the challenges of life, in the bad days and in the good days, we are to live lives worthy of our Lord. The path of sin is wide and easy, but as disciples of Jesus we are called to persevere in pursuing the narrow way, the path of obedience to our Lord and our God. Trusting His timing, trusting His will, trusting His plan, trusting His purpose, trusting Him!
Colossians 1:12, May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to His people, who live in the light.
We can rejoice, God has given us a spiritual inheritance that will not perish. Listen to 1 Peter 1:3-5, All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by His great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance — an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And through your faith, God is protecting you by His power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.
If you are in Christ this morning, you are a participant in this inheritance. We persevere by looking ahead, looking to our eternal future, a place in Heaven purchased by the blood of Christ. When we focus on the problems of the day we can falter, we can stumble. When we look ahead, when we look to God, then we can live as His children, we can live in His glorious light.
Colossians 1:13-14: For He has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of His dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins. Rescued, ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven.
Brought from darkness into light, transferred from death to life. Saved. Secure in Christ and Christ alone.
We can persevere, we can endure, we can experience a spiritual mature life of faith. A life of faith where the light of God overpowers the darkness of this world and the devil. God has a destiny for you and for me, a destiny that brings honour and glory to Him. A life lived for Christ and then an eternity with Christ, there is no greater destiny. We are redeemed by the blood of Christ. All our sin, past, present, future, nailed to His cross, we bear them no more. We no longer walk in fear, we no longer walk in condemnation, we have been freed, we have been saved.
Friend, be encouraged by God’s word to you today. Walk by faith, persevere, know that what God has promised to do He will do. He is able.
My final question for you to reflect on is this: Are you living a life worthy of Jesus’ sacrifice for you?
Our lives need to reflect the sacrifice made by Christ for us.
My final encouragement to you is this:
Persevere to understand God’s will for your life.
Persevere to become spiritual mature.
Persevere to patiently endure hardship.
Persevere to grow in your relationship with God.
Let’s pray.
