Perseverance: Hiking the Steep Grade
July 7, 2002
This morning, we’re going to be talking about the 5th word that you’re going to become very well acquainted with as you hike the upward trail we call the Christian life…
PERSEVERANCE.
If you’ve been with us in past weeks you know that we’ve been using a special group of chapters out of the book of Psalms, called the “Songs of Ascent”,
Instead of singing “100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” or counting “blue trucks with license plates from Alabama”… ancient travelers used to sing these songs with their families, as they’d travel on foot to Jerusalem to worship in the temple.
As a group, they really symbolize what it’s like to travel with Jesus, following Him each step of the way. So let’s read Psalm 129 this morning together… (READ)
Psalm 129 is really a song about ‘perseverance’. If you’re going to be a faithful follower of Jesus Christ… you’re going to have to develop this characteristic in your life.
People who win in life (in any area) have developed the ability to stay at it, to never quit, to keep on keeping on!
Call it “grit”, tenacity, endurance, persistence, diligence, determination, stubbornness (some people even call it stupidity)… but without it… whatever you put your hand to…won’t succeed!
This is especially true when it comes to living the Christian life.
That’s because as you try and stand for what is right and Godly…everyone and everything will be against you at times.
The psalmist writes in vs. 1,2… “They’ve kicked me around ever since I was young…
You might as well know now… if you decide to follow Jesus Christ, the people you care about the most… may not support your decision! In fact, they may openly oppose it!
Friends at school, relatives, parents, husbands, wives… and they may even kick you around a little bit in the process!
When you decide to live like as a Christian… the world will oppose you… circumstances will oppose you… the devil will oppose you… So if you’re going to make it… you’re going to have to have that little ‘bit of grit’… ingrained deep down in the pit of your soul that says…
“You may have knocked me down temporarily… but with God’s help, I’m not going to stay there! You may have gotten the upper hand for the moment… but don’t worry… I’ll be back!
He says, “They’ve kicked me around…but they never could keep me down!” He says, “In the end, I WILL TRIUMPH!”
Have you ever noticed that the word “TRIUMPH” is nothing more than “umph”… added to “try”? It may not seem like a lot of difference, but as we’ll find out this morning… it may make ALL the difference… between winning and losing; between falling and standing.
The people of God are tough! They’re not these willy-nilly, fragile, fair-haired, feather-weights! They can take the heat!
For centuries those who belong to the world have waged war against the way of faith… vs. 3 says, “Their plowmen plowed long furrows up and down my back”… but they have YET to win!
The people of faith have always outlasted the oppressors, because FAITH lasts!
But what we fail to realize sometimes is that the very trials we want to ignore and pray to have removed… may be God’s way of toughening up our faith!
I thought this was interesting when I read it. These are actual comments taken from registration forms returned to the rangers at the “Bridger Wilderness Area” in Wyoming… (I think you’ll get a kick out of this!)
1. Trails need to be wider, so people can walk holding hands.
2. Trails need to be reconstructed. Please avoid trails that go uphill.
3. Too many bugs and leeches and spiders webs. Please spray the wilderness to rid
the area of these pests.
4. Please pave the trials so they can be plowed of snow during the winter.
5. Chairlifts need to be in some places so that we can get to wonderful views without
having to hike to them.
6. The coyotes made too much noise last night and kept me awake. Please eradicate
these annoying animals.
7. A small deer came into my camp and stole my jar of pickles. Is there a way I can
get reimbursed?
8. Reflectors need to be placed on trees every 50 ft so people can hike at night with
flashlights.
9. Escalators would help on steep uphill sections.
10. A McDonalds would be nice at the trailhead.
11. The places where trails do not exist are not well marked.
12. Too many rocks in the mountains.
Can you imagine what would happen to the wilderness if these people had their way? Talk about spoiled!
Sometimes when it comes to God, we’re no different! We want convenience and comfort…we don’t want hardship! We want escalators on the “steep uphill sections”… “a McDonalds at every trailhead”… but if you’re going to go all the way with God…
He’s not going to remove all the obstacles from the trail, anymore than the rangers aren’t going to go out & remove all the rocks from the mountains!
So to clear up any confusion about perseverance this morning, I want to give you a few things that perseverance “IS” and “ISN’T” as we go through this psalm…
1st of all,
1. Perseverance ISN’T … RESIGNATION to evil
READ vs. 5 with me…”Oh, let all who hate Zion grovel in humiliation; Let them be like grass in shallow ground that withers before the harvest,
I was tempted when preparing this message to be politically correct & just kind of skate over that vs. It sounds a little harsh, doesn’t it? “Let all who hate Zion grovel in humiliation?”
Later he goes on to say, “Let them be like grass in shallow ground that withers before the harvest!” Whoa! Sounds kind of ruthless doesn’t it?
But when I thought about it, it actually makes a pretty good pt. when talking about perseverance…
See persevering isn’t this ‘antiseptic attitude’ that never gets ruffled, never gets upset… is always cool, always calm, always collected.
It doesn’t mean when confronted by evil, you just lay down and let people plow over you!
This guys angry! He’s been abused & treated unfairly! He’s getting tired of evil people plowing long furrows up and down his back! It’s time to fight back!
Listen…It’s alright to get angry about injustice. See, I worry more about a person who never gets upset over what’s wrong in the world, than I do about the guy who vents every once in a while!
The bible give us permission in Eph.4:26 , to get angry as long as we don’t cross the line of sin. (READ) Sin would mean yelling obscenities, breaking laws, killing people, ect.
Anger can mean you care about something! You care about God’s standards of justice. You CARE about righteousness. You CARE about unborn babies being murdered… and you get angry about it, …but you don’t go out and blow up an abortion clinic.
Your anger drives you towards bringing about a peaceful change. Righting a social injustice.
What’s scary is when we lose our sense of opposition to sin. When we don’t want to be bothered by injustice, unless it affects us personally.
We become like a pastor during WWII under Nazi rule who said, “In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.” –Martin Niemoller
I want to show you a music video this morning.
Now we’re not specifically talking about America’s freedom today, but I think it illustrates how we need to speak out about what’s wrong in our country.
(Show Carman Video, The Standard, “America Again”)
Now, you may (or may not) agree with everything he said, but you gotta admire his fire!
One of the reasons I enjoy Carmen so much is because of his willingness to stand up for what’s right and still persevere, regardless of the flack he takes. In fact, the CD this comes from is called, “The Standard”.
The Christian has a responsibility to stand up for what God stands up for! To persevere in the face of opposition, instead of throwing up our hands and quietly resigning to evil.
Edmund Burke had it right when he said, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” How true!
The psalmist is expressing a little bit of his righteous indignation, and it’s actually something you HAVE to have, if you’re going to endure the hard times, and hike the steep grade!
2. Perseverance IS … Finding Your Purpose
I think that one of the main reasons that people ‘give-up’ prematurely is that they’re not really convinced of the importance of what they’re doing. (let me explain what I mean by that…)
I remember arriving in Washington, MO. almost 20 years ago with my new wife, to start our first church. It was a small German Catholic town of about 15,000 located on the banks of the Missouri River.
I was right out of college, 22 yrs. old (I admit, still a little wet behind the ears), so I figured that starting a church would be a ‘cake-walk’. All I’d have to do was announce our services and people would come a runnin’!
But one of my 1st lessons was that German Catholics don’t do ANYTHING fast! And it wasn’t long before I realized that unless you were Catholic and raised in Washington… you were suspect!
I can’t tell you how many times I just wanted to pack up our bags and leave! In fact, I told the Lord one time… “Lord, if we were to leave right now… nobody would care!”
And I remember Him telling me in that calm, but forceful way of His…”Yea, Chris, that may be true… but the people that are going to come to know Me in the future would care!” That kind of stopped me in my tracks!
And despite being discouraged and frustrated, tired and out of ideas… we stayed! We stayed almost 10 years didn’t we, honey?
As a result, God was faithful to His promise and a lot of lives were changed as a result. There were a whole bunch of reasons we could have used to give up (good ones!), but you know why we stuck it out?
Because God had called us there! We had a purpose. And it had eternal consequences that superceded our emotions! (Now we’ve been called to plant a church in this community, and I think you can begin to see how hard it is to get rid of us!)
What’s your purpose in life? Do you know? Until you find out what it is… you’ll never develop the character quality of perseverance.
Without a purpose, life becomes boring, monotonous, meaningless …easy to give up on!
Jesus had a purpose for living. It’s found in Luke 19:10 (READ)
He gave his life for that purpose and He never gave up! Aren’t you glad? He went to the cross to fulfill that purpose.
The bible tells us in Heb.12:2,3 that if we want to learn how to go the distance, we should look to Him. Because here we find the most incredible display of endurance and perseverance ever recorded. (READ)
How did Jesus endure the horrific torture of a Roman crucifixion?
How did He stand the agony of slow suffocation? Do you know? What does this vs. say? “For the joy set before him… He endured the cross”
You say, “You mean to tell me that Jesus was actually enjoying himself up there on the cross?” No. The bible doesn’t say that. What it says is that there was joy in thinking ahead to what His suffering would accomplish in the future.
See, I believe that as He was hanging on the cross, Jesus was visualizing the millions and millions of lives that would be changed, healed and saved from an eternity in hell… because of the sin that his death was paying for…
I think He saw ME while He was on that cross! (I really do!) I think He saw YOU! And the bible says, He experienced JOY… as He thought about what His suffering would mean to you and me! That we could experience forgiveness for our sins and be freed to live a life of service for Him!
Because Jesus had a purpose, and He kept the end in mind… He concluded that…
… the GOAL was greater than the TOLL!
… the GAIN superceded the PAIN!
… the PRIZE would dwarf the PRICE!
That’s what kept Him on that cross, not the nails! And listen, we can endure any trial, put up with any set-back, suffer any failure or embarrassment… if we’ll find a purpose worth living for… and never lose focus of the goal.
Listen, He wants to give YOU a purpose that goes beyond yourself, …if … you’ll take some time and ask Him!
The reason you’re tempted to give up this morning may be that you don’t have a purpose in your life, big enough to give you meaning!
3. Perseverance ISN’T… Fearing Failure
II Timothy 1:7 tells us that “God did not give us a spirit that makes us afraid but a spirit of power and love and self-control.” If you’re going to persevere… you’re going to have to realize that “ failure is not final”!
I.B.M. founder T.J. Watson once said that “Success is on the far side of failure”… See you don’t have to fear failure, because it’s a part of the process!
As a Christian, you’re never going to be perfect. You’re going to blow it! You’re going to mess up! And the people around you (other Christians) aren’t perfect either! They’re going to blow it and mess up as well!
BUT…Failure comes when you don’t get back up!
It’s like the football coach who was briefing his new staff member, he said, “Ya know the kind of man who gets knocked down and stays down?”
Staff: Yea… that’s not who we want on this team is it?
Coach: NOPE!
Coach: Do you know the kind of guy who gets knocked down and gets up, gets knocked down and gets up, then gets knocked down and stays down?
Staff: Yea, and that’s not the guy we want either is it?
Coach: NOPE!
Coach: Now there’s a kind of guy who gets knocked down and gets up…x3… and no matter how many times you knock him down… he gets up.
Staff: THAT’s the man we want for our team, right Coach?
Coach: NOPE! That’s not who we want! We want the guy who’s knocking all those other guys down!”
Want to know a secret I discovered about people who succeed in life? Here it is… they’re the ones who got knocked down the most in life… but just kept getting up!
See, just because you’ve failed once, doesn’t give you any excuse not to ever try again! Failure isn’t your enemy… it’s your friend!
In fact, a lot of times the doorway to succeeding is entered into through the hallway of failure! It’s the failures in life that ultimately help you to gain success!
It’s like the true story I heard of an advertising exec. who was given the responsibility for a large account… but he bungled it and ended up losing a million dollar contract for his company.
The next day the C.E.O. called him up and asked him to come into his office. He thought his goose was cooked!
When he got there he sat down nervously, and the C.E.O. calmly asked him what happened. He explained the situation and then the C.E.O just shook his head and said, “Well, okay… just do better the next time!”
The businessman was in shock & asked him, “You mean you’re not going to fire me?”
The C.E.O. responded, “No way! I just spent a million dollars on your education! You’re too valuable to fire!”
Don’t you wish you had a boss like that? Someone who understood the value of failure? Instead of giving up, you need to think of failure as ‘fertilizer’… teaching you what NOT to do the next time!
If you’ve had a recent failure, I want to encourage you this morning, … (whether in your marriage, or with your kids, in a relationship, or maybe in your Christian life)… DON’T GIVE UP!
HANG IN THERE! Don’t allow failure to be final! There’s an old saying in Texas that goes this way… “It doesn’t matter how much milk you spill, as long as you don’t lose the cow!”
You haven’t lost the cow! Get up, and God will show you how to turn your stumbling stones into stepping stones towards ultimate success!
Then lastly…
4. Perseverance IS … Trusting God’s Faithfulness
After getting kicked around pretty good and used for a field to be plowed over… the writer of this verse says this…
“But God wouldn’t put up with it, He sticks with us;
The God ripped the harnesses of the evil plowmen to shreds”
Ultimately, perseverance isn’t a result of our own determination and stamina… it’s the result of God’s faithfulness.
We survive and succeed in the life of faith…
not because we have an extraordinary amount of energy,
not because we have the power of positive thinking,
not because we have any special talent or gift…
But because God is righteous!!!
He sticks with us, and eventually “rips the reigns” out of the evil plowman’s hands!
When the bible says that God sticks with us, the emphasis is on the dependable personal relationship He has with us. He’s ALWAYS there for us!
Because He sticks with us, a Christian can look back over a long life crisscrossed with cruel furrows up and down their back, unannounced tragedies, unexpected set-backs, sufferings, disappointments and depressions… and see it as field of dreams!
The evil plowman doesn’t have the final victory. In fact, everything the world has done to destroy us… isn’t working!
* The plows of persecution… aren’t working!
* The plows of pain… aren’t working!
* The plows of power… not working!
God is faithful to turn our scars into stars!
Let me just conclude today with a great story of Mt. Climbing.
Sir Edmund Hillary was attempting to scale Mt. Everest and lost one of his team members in a failed effort. He returned with a hero’s welcome in London where a banquet was held in his honor and attended by all the powerful people of Great Britain.
Behind the speaker’s platform, they had hung a huge blown up photo of Mt. Everest (a lot like the one behind me). When Sir Edmund Hillary rose to receive the acclaim of this distinguished audience, he turned around, faced the picture and said…
“Mt. Everest, you have defeated me… but I will return!
And I will defeat you! Because you can’t get any bigger… and I can!”
Eventually, he did scale that huge Mt. and was the 1st man to ever do so… but the lesson is this… Because God is sticking with us… no matter what the challenge, no matter how many failures we have to endure… the fact is, God is using them to help us grow BIGGER!
Regardless of what life throws at us, with His help, we’ll always come out ahead!
It doesn’t matter the size of the Mt. you’re facing today… what’s important is… it can’t grow any bigger or tougher… BUT with God’s help… YOU CAN!
Are you tempted to quit today?
Maybe you feel like a failure in life, in business, in your marriage, as a parent… Maybe you feel like the writer of this psalm… They’ve kicked me around since my childhood. You’ve had it tough ever since you were a child, and it’s getting old.
You want to just throw in the towel… DON’t do it!
If you’ll ask God for His purpose for your life, He’ll give you the strength to go on.
If you’ll refuse to fear failure and instead see it as your friend…
If you’ll trust in God instead of yourself…
You can get up again! You can endure! You can win!
LETS PRAY
