We continue to add to our faith by learning how to add perseverance. Eric Ennis delivers a message of encouragement and hope to become more like God.

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OC Church of Christ

We're on this lesson of

becoming more in twenty-four.

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This is definitely a Marcel thing.

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Don't gimme credit for that at all.

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That is all Marcel.

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But I appreciate the

sentiment of what's behind it.

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It's, we should always be striving

to be more than what we are.

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It's this look at, I think

this clicker works or not.

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Technology's amazing,

especially when it doesn't work.

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It's working.

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This is a green button.

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This should go, oh, look at that.

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Okay.

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There we go.

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So we're going through two Peter one.

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In case you haven't been following

along, uh, we've been staying in

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this scripture and, and I like doing

a deeper dive in the scripture.

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To go word by word to get a, a

greater perspective of what in this

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case, Peter was trying to tell us.

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And we've been under the, the guise of

God's empowerment and our human effort

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and how it joins together to transform

us to become more in twenty-four.

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Today we're gonna be

talking about perseverance.

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Boy, there's a good word, uh, and a

word that we typically don't like.

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Because perseverance means challenges,

perseverance means difficulties.

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And I was thinking about

the last time I was up here.

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I did persecution right before, uh,

Christmas, and now I got perseverance

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and I thought, man, I'm the fun preacher.

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Uh, perseverance, persecution.

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But believe me, this word

is all over the Bible.

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Uh, and we're gonna see that a bit today.

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So this is our main text in two

Peter one, three through five.

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It reads, his divine power has given

us everything we need for a godly life

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through our knowledge of him who called

us by his own glory and goodness.

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Through these, he's given us his

very great and precious promises,

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so that through them you may

participate in the divine nature.

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Having escaped the corruption of the

world caused by evil desires for this

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very reason, make every effort to add

to your faith goodness, and to goodness

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knowledge and to knowledge self-control.

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And to self-control, perseverance, and the

perseverance, godliness and the godliness.

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Mutual affection, and a mutual affection.

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Love.

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So this has been our main text and

I, and I wanna, before we get into

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perseverance, I want to break down

a little bit of his divine nature.

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God's divine power, and this

idea of making every effort.

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So when you look at those words,

you had goodness, knowledge,

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self-control, perseverance,

godliness, mutual affection, and love.

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That it's God's divine nature.

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That's who God is.

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God is faithful.

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When we're not faithful, God is good.

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When we're not good, God is knowledgeable

and we can trust in his wisdom.

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God has self-control because there's

been multiple times where God says, I

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would wipe you out, but I'm not going to.

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God is perseverant with us.

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He's obviously godly and he's loving,

and this is in stark contrast.

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To our nature, which Paul defines as this.

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As for you, you were dead in

your transgressions and sins in

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which you used to live when you

followed the ways of this world.

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All of us who lived among them at

one time gratifying the cravings

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of our flesh and following his

desires and thoughts like the rest.

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We were by nature deserving of wrath.

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What a stark contract.

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Black and white in the sense of just

God's divine nature and our nature.

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We are so different from this by who we

are, and I know we live in a time where

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it's like you're a good person and I'm a

good person, and maybe from the outside

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eyes, sometimes we can appear that way.

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But if someone was to dissect my heart and

my mind and see what goes on inside there.

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They would go, oh yeah, Eric's,

definitely deserving of wrath

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because that's my nature.

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The craving of my flesh and the desires

that I want to carry out with that.

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It's who I am.

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But the hope that we have

is this divine nature.

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Because God's divine power works

with our making every effort to help

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transform us to his divine nature.

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That's what second Peter's talking

about is that we can have this

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nature, but we have to make every

effort we have to do our part.

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And this is probably one of the

hardest things about being a

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Christian, is recognizing our lane.

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'cause sometimes we wanna jump

into God's lane and we wanna

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do what God is supposed to do.

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We're gonna take over, we're

gonna make this happen.

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And God's like, no, you get in

your lane, you make every effort,

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but I'll make this happen.

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And we can be transformed

into his divine nature.

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I also wanna look at

this word, perseverance.

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Huponone is what you say in Greek.

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It stands for steadfastness,

constancy, and endurance.

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These are all nice big words.

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So I thought I would go with an English

translation of this, and it means

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continued effort to do or achieve

something despite difficulties.

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Failure or opposition, the action or

condition or instance of persevering.

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And I was laughing at myself

right now 'cause I realized the

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first thing I focused on, and even

what I highlighted was despite

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difficulties, failure, opposition, I

didn't highlight, achieve something.

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'cause that's not how I

think about perseverance.

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When I think perseverance, I don't

think about what I'm gonna achieve.

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I think about difficulties,

opposition, hardship, struggle.

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That's perseverance.

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It's like, man, this, that's exciting.

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On a Sunday morning, I'm here with

my family, all excited to worship God

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and I gotta go through difficulties.

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Failure, opposition.

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Why would I want to be a Christian?

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Why would I want to go through

this in the same way we love

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God because he first loved us.

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We persevere 'cause

God perseveres with us.

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Romans eight.

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It says, for I'm convinced that neither

death nor life, neither angels nor demons,

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neither the present nor the future, nor

any powers, neither height nor death,

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nor anything else in all creation, will

be able to separate us from the love of

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God that is in Christ Jesus the Lord.

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Notice it doesn't say, it won't

separate in the sense that our love

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from God, it's God's love to us.

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None of these things is

gonna stop God's love for us.

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God's gonna persevere in his love for us.

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And when I read this, sometimes

I can feel like, yeah, but what

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are really God's obstacles?

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God's all-powerful.

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Is it really that difficult for him?

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You know, what's his greatest obstacle?

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And I realized his

greatest obstacle is us.

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We are the greatest obstacle.

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For God's love 'cause God has

to really persevere with us.

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I was reading a Nehemiah, and

Nehemiah was describing the

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Israelites, and Nehemiah said this.

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It says they refused to listen

and failed to remember the

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miracles you performed among them.

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They became stiff-necked, and in

their rebellion appointed a leader

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in order to return to their slavery.

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But you are forgiving God.

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Gracious and compassionate, slow

to anger and abounding of love.

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Therefore, you did not desert them as

a young Christian and reading the old

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Testament, there's a lot there that

I was like, I, I don't understand a,

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a lot of stuff as a young Christian,

and one of the things I didn't

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understand with the Israelites here,

God walked with them, showed his

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presence to them, performed miracles

for them, brought them outta slavery.

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Into and leading them to a promised

land and while on the jury to the

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promised land outta slavery, they're

like, eh, um, it's not that great here.

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Yeah, I know we're on this journey,

this promised land, but you know what?

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It was nice back in Egypt.

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I know we were enslaved, but

how bad is slavery really?

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Let's go back, let's get a new

leader and let's head back that way.

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Let's not keep going

towards God's promises.

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This.

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And as a young Christian, I'm

like, these Israelites are stupid.

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And then I became a Christian

for a little bit longer and I

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realized, oh, I'm stupid too.

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I'm the same way I think of the

miracles God's performed in my

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life, the transformation, the

bringing me out of slavery from my

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evil desires, from what held me.

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And sometimes I get in

a place where I'm like.

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Was it really that bad back there?

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Was it really that tough?

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Maybe I could go back.

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You know, at least be on

the way back a little bit.

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I mean this, this journey to

the promised part is hard.

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So slavery isn't all bad, right?

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And I forget, and I become exactly

what Nehemiah is saying here, A

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stiff-necked people, and we can

become this if we don't persevere.

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Now you think, well man,

perseverance is hard.

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You're right.

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But read the Bible.

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You'll be inspired by so

many people that persevere.

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What do I mean by so many people?

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A bunch.

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Job persevered through extreme suffering

a loss, but remained faithful to God.

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Joseph sold into slavery by his

own family and imprisoned falsely.

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Remained steadfast to God and

eventually saved his family.

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Moses endured decades of hardship as he

led the Israelites outta slavery through

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the wilderness, but remained faithful.

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David faced trials even of his own

king who tried to persecute him and his

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own failures yet remained steadfast.

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Esther risked her life to save the

people displaying enormous courage

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and perseverance in the face of.

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Certain death you think?

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Well, that's just a few.

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Okay, let's do some more.

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Ruth demonstrated perseverance in her

loyalty to Naomi, going to a place

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that she didn't even know where she

was going, but stayed true to God.

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Your people will be my people.

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Your God will be my God.

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Daniel endured persecution most of his

life and lived as a, as a bond servant to

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a kingdom that overthrew the Israelites.

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And yet he never compromised his beliefs.

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Paul suffered persecution, imprisonment,

various hardships all the way up

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to death, yet remained committed.

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Abraham displayed perseverance

in his journeys and faith not

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knowing what God's gonna lead him.

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And Hannah endured years of barrenness

and social stigma, but remained

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persistent with God in prayer.

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I could do this for the rest of the time.

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You pick a person in the Bible and follow

their journey, you will see persevering.

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It's one of the traits.

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We like to pick up the Bible and

think, oh, if I read it, I'm just

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gonna read about some guy who all was

good and God just brought him through.

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And that is not the story

of the Bible at all.

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The story of the Bible is perseverance.

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And if you're feeling like,

man, it's hard to persevere.

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Spend time with some of these people

and walk with them and learn from them.

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Because sometimes we think, oh man,

I'm persevering this week, but if

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it doesn't change next week, whoo.

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I don't know if I can keep going.

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In some of these cases, you're

talking 40 years of perseverance

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of hardship, but they remain close

to God, so we must persevere.

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I wanna read from the book of James

now before I do, I, I'm teaching

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a, a helping out facilitate a young

Christian class for our college ministry.

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And uh, last week we, or

a couple weeks ago we went

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through how to study the Bible.

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And one of the things, when you said the

Bible, you ought talk about who's talking.

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You know what's, what's the source.

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And so this is coming from James because

I know when looking at you, some of you're

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like, if he tells me I have to persevere,

he doesn't know what I'm going through.

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He doesn't know the challenges I'm facing.

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He doesn't know the hardship

that I'm in right now.

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And you're right, I don't.

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So please hear that this

is coming from James now.

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Who's James?

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Let me just introduce

James to you for a moment.

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He was the brother of Jesus.

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What would it take for you to grow

up growing up with your siblings?

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To be convinced that your sibling, your

younger brother or sister, or older

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brother or sister was the Lord and Christ?

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It would've taken a lot to try

to convince me that my brother

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Victor was the Lord in Christ.

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I'm like, Mm-Hmm.

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You don't know him like I do.

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What did he see that convinced him?

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Part of it was the resurrection.

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Part of it was seeing his brother come

back from the dead who appeared to him.

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'cause he wasn't faithful as a follower

early on, but he becomes so to the point

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of his own death, he will leave the

church in Jerusalem for over 30 years.

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The church in Jerusalem was basically

mainly Jews and they were ostracized.

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By the Jewish community because

they were following this way,

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this Christ, this Messiah that

they thought that wasn't is Jesus.

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And so during hardships and famine,

Paul would actually go and travel around

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to the Gentile churches raising money

to give to the Jerusalem Jews because

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some of them were starving to death.

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And this is the church he's leading.

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And he will die in

Jerusalem for his beliefs.

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So just know what he says to you.

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This is where he's coming from.

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Let's hear what he has to say.

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James, A servant of God

and a Lord Jesus Christ.

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To the 12 tribes scattered among the

nations greetings, consider it pure joy.

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My brothers and sisters, whenever

you face trials of many kind.

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Us because you know that the testing

of your faith produces perseverance.

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Let perseverance finish its work

so that you may be mature and

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complete, not lacking anything.

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If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask

God who gives generously to all without

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finding fault and it'll be given to you.

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I wanna highlight this first point.

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Whenever you face trial,

not if ever not, you might.

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No.

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Whenever you will.

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It.

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It's a part of the Christian walk.

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You will face trials and what

are we supposed to do with this?

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Consider it pure joy.

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I just told you.

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You don't know what I'm going through.

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I don't, but it doesn't

make this any less true.

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Consider it pure joy.

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How do I do that?

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How do I consider it?

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Pure joy.

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What I'm going through.

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A loss of a family member.

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A friend that has hurt you, A

brother and sister in Christ that

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has turned their back on you.

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Financial hardships.

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Hardships in school.

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How do I consider it?

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Pure joy.

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'cause it's a testing of your faith.

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Faith isn't living this life to go, if

I'm faithful, God's gonna do this for me.

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It's not a secret switch that

you get to turn on and just make

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God do what you want him do.

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Faith is being certain that God is

working even when you don't know what's

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happening and you get to test this

faith, you get to see the authenticity

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of this faith and live this out.

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And it'll help you to be mature

and complete, not lacking anything.

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Well, what does mature

and complete look like?

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God's divine nature.

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Being faithful, having goodness,

having knowledge, having self-control,

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being godly, living a life of love.

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We all want these traits.

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But we have to be able to

go through it to get there.

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And this can be the hard part,

and it is hard and it's hard,

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especially if it's a long journey.

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Something, uh, some of, you know, in

this room, not many, but some of, you

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know, uh, it's been a hard journey.

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From the time I was baptized, 1920,

I heard a lesson and the lesson was

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this, pray for your future children.

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So by the time I was 20 years old.

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I've been praying about

what my child might be like,

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and I got married in my

twenties and, uh, God said no.

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And, uh, with my wife's passing, I

found recently, uh, an unanswered prayer

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from her saying, you know, pregnancy

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And, uh, you know, I think

I got surrendered to that.

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And then recently getting

remarried, it was a, a hope again.

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Um, and so we started praying again,

you know, and just going, okay,

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God, maybe this might be an option.

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And we found out in early December

that we had basically a one in

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a thousand chance to have child.

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Crushing years of prayer.

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And I was like, okay, God, you know, I,

I, I can't stop praying and I'm gonna

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continue to pray, and I'm grateful

for your prayers because it has been

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enormously challenging because we found

that out on a Friday and on Sunday in

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December, we found out we were pregnant.

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And so we are 14 weeks and we're

expecting a little baby boy.

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Now here's what I'm looking at.

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Just so you know, a bunch of you friends

of mine who have older children going.

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You've not stopped persevering.

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Your perseverance has only just begun.

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And they are right and you are right.

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I'm grateful that God has heard

my prayers, but I also know that

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those prayers need to continue, that

I'll still be praying for my little

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boy as he grows up as he develops.

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'cause I'll have to persevere.

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That's what it means to persevere,

and many of you are still in

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it with your kids persevering.

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Yeah, I know.

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That's right.

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Because I know some of you and I

hang out with some of your kids,

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we persevere not just for a

season, but for a lifetime.

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So how do we add perseverance to our life?

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We recognize instead of run.

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We recognize that we're in

a season of perseverance.

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We reframe our mindset that, yes, this

is a tough time and we're going through

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it and it's okay, but I'm not gonna run.

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I'm not gonna be someone who

skips out on this moment.

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This is a testing of my faith.

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We're gonna pray instead of pout.

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We can get to a place in our

life sometimes when we're

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praying and be like, ah.

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I don't wanna pray anymore.

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I just wanna pow Oh, I don't like this.

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No.

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If you are in a moment, pray instead

of pout, and we are gonna be those

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who step out instead of shrink back.

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Hebrews 10 39 says, but we do not

belong to those who shrink back and

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are destroyed, but to those who have

faith and are saved, this is how we

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add perseverance and the benefits of

this, it'll strengthen your faith.

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When my baby is born.

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I will get to remember

those years of perseverance.

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Every time I see his

face, you'll develop grit.

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We don't like this in our day and age.

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There's a phrase that says

Hard times produce hard men.

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Hard men produce soft times.

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Soft times produce soft men.

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And soft men produce hard times, and we

got some soft times that produce some

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soft men, and we need to get some grit.

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Yes, yes.

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We need to stand up for what's

right through the hardships,

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through the difficulties, 'cause

it'll cultivate our character.

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We'll develop integrity

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and we'll become a testimony

of God's faithfulness.

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And ultimately, as James told us, we'll be

mature and complete, not lacking anything.

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So as we head into communion.

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Remember, we make every effort, we

strive, and God will do his part in

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transforming us into his divine nature.

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So action steps for this week.

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Pray for God's wisdom as

you face these trials.

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Remember James says, ask for

wisdom and he'll be given to

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you without fighting fault.

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And if you're going through

it, ask someone to walk with

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you through your challenges.

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I thank you for those who prayed with me.

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Who've been on this journey with me,

and not just this past year, not just

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this past two years, but who've walked

with me through my Christianity.

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'cause you've kept,

helped me keep faithful.

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Thank you for spending that time

with me, and if you're going through

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it, ask someone to walk with you.

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Christianity is not

meant to be done alone.

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We're a family.

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So as we head into

communion, Jesus perseveres.

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This Hebrews 12, one through three.

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Therefore, since we are surrounded by

such a great cloud of witnesses, let us

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throw off everything that hinders and

the sin that so easily entangles and let

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us run with perseverance the race marked

out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus,

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the pioneer and perfecter of faith.

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For the joy set before him, he endured

the cross scorning a shame, and sat down

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at the right hand of the throne of God.

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Consider him who endured such

opposition from sinners so that

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you will not grow weary and lose

heart as we head in this time.

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Jesus lived out what he's calling

us to do for the joy set before him.

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He endured.

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He persevered through the cross, and

where did he end the right hand of

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God, which is where we, we will be

someday, but we cannot grow weary.

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And we cannot lose heart

'cause we have to persevere.

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Let's pray.

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Fathers, we come before you in this

time and we recognize who you are and

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how much God you persevere with us.

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Let us make every effort to

give back and persevere with you

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because we know God that you will

go to any extreme to love us.

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Neither height nor depth.

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Nor anything else and all of creation

will separate us from your love.

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Let us run the race marked out for us

and achieve the crown of glory at the end

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because we know God, that we will sit at

the throne of God if we remain faithful.

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Father, we are grateful to you

for the love that you show us.

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And as we take this communion,

the, the bread that represents

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your body, that was crushed.

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In pierced and the blood that was spilled,

the grape juice that we drink, we take.

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So remembering that it was this

death that ultimately led to the

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resurrection that saves us today,

and we pray this UN son's name.

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Amen.