Four Lessons From the Disciples — Shane Idleman

Four Lessons From the Disciples

I'm going to talk to you tonight on the topic of four lessons from the disciples. And guess what? These are not new lessons. But I want to kind of hit some of these from a different angle and kind of be able to take away something from the lives of the disciples.

The Call to Ministry and the Harvest

And where we find ourselves is in Matthew chapter 10. And we left off, as you know, last week, if you weren't here, go back and listen to last week's message. The call of Jesus, the call of Jesus Christ to the ministry.

Matthew chapter 9 .37. This is where we left off last week. And he said to the disciples, the harvest truly is plentiful, but the labors are few. Boy, isn't that true? The harvest is plentiful, but the labors are few.

Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labors into the harvest. It's one thing to be a Christian, but it's another thing to go out and actually do work in the ministry. And not just, you don't have to be in the ministry full time, just everywhere you go is ministry.

I mean, I realized that this week, everywhere I went, I went to pick up a door that we fix and over at the place where they're fixing the door and ministering to the guy, inviting him to church. And then, you know, over at this cafe or this waitress, I mean, it's everywhere.

It's amazing if we allow it to be there. But many times we don't want to minister, right? I just, don't bother me today, Lord. I just need to relax. And we need some relaxing days. But if you just look around, the field is everywhere.

And a lot of times you'll reach people that I won't. I'll never speak to them, but you will. And that's where this whole verse comes into play. And how do we measure success? Usually, this isn't working.

I quit. We talked about that last week. The American church, we've created this, you know, capitalism and, you know, the American pride and we can just do everything. But when it comes to ministry, we hear this often.

It's just not working. I quit. I give up. And yeah, many times we don't see that. We're just planting the seeds. But we want to plant the seed. We want to stay in water. And we want to see the fruit tree come up and we want to eat of the fruit.

But that's not ministry. Ministry is planting the seeds and God wants to watch our heart. Because in ministry, you're never not succeeding. If you're witnessing, if you're ministering in the power of the Holy Spirit, you don't see immediate fruit.

And what happens? What happens? We get frustrated. And speakers do this. I used to gauge it all the time. Is there a thousand people there? I'm a success. If there's a hundred, oh, what happened, Lord?

God's, I'm sure saying, you silly boy. Success is in quality and what you're doing with one person or two or three or four. And I guess maybe it's just my vantage point, but I see people give up a lot.

And they say, this isn't working, Shane. I quit. I can't do this anymore. And I actually had lunch this week with a guy who's in ministry to the Muslims in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and he's not getting any support from the churches.

And I met with him and I'm going to get him kind of plugged in here because he's got a great ministry, but he just wanted to give up because the churches aren't supporting him. And that's why I said, well, you got to get plugged in with the church because if you just go knock on a church and say, hey, I'm doing this, that raises a red flag sometimes.

We don't know you. We can't invest to a ministry we don't know. But he was telling me about everything he was doing in safe houses and sending Bibles back there and all. And I'm thinking, you're giving up?

That's success. But how we measure that success, I thought I was going to do this, TV ministry, thousands of people, this, all the churches, well, hold on, let's remove our idea of success and put in God's idea of success.

Because if all you're doing is, Lord, whatever you want me to do, I'll minister, I'll clean the restrooms, I'll pick up trash, I'll empty this, I'll go here, I'll say whatever you want me to do, you don't feel like quitting.

Because there's strength in that humility, there's strength in serving. But it's when we say, well, I want to do this, and if it doesn't turn out like this, and if I'm not here by then, then it's not working.

God says, well, you better go this direction, down the narrow road, down the path of humility, because that's where fulfillment comes from. And I saw it, I mean, this happened early in my ministry, when God opened tremendous doors.

And then I go into, you know, the small churches with 12 people, I would travel out to, out by Palm Springs, I don't remember, the Yucaipa, or something like that, Yucca Valley, and then North Edwards, and Tachipee.

And they would have me going and preaching all these, many times, 20, 25, 30, 40 people. Little churches. But the Spirit of God was there, the power of God in the worship, and saying, Lord, wherever you want to use me, people will be getting saved, and it's just amazing.

But once I had to re-program my definition of success, right? Because we all do that, we put numbers on it. Open a business, you better be profiting. Open a church, you better be growing. Do a ministry, you better be speaking to lots of people.

You start a ministry, you better get recognition, and you start a Bible study. We see this a lot too, people have 20 people show up, 25, it's going great, and then guess what happens as the weeks go by?

Three people saying, this isn't working. Oh, yes it is. You see, how you measure success isn't working. But God will sometimes strip it down to one person, and say, let me test your heart. Because he who's faithful in the little things, I will make him ruler over much, over many.

And how else does God test our heart? Because it's very easy to say, Lord, wherever you want to send me, if you shrink the church down, if you shrink my ministry down to one person, two people, no matter what, that sounds great when everything's going good.

The class is starting Monday, right? This coming Monday. Men, grief share, there might be where it gets down to one or two, and he'll use that to mold and shape us. I know when I start the Monday study again in October, I'm going to be preaching on Mondays.

It's great turnout the first night. Second Monday, third Monday, fourth Monday. You're down to 50%, sometimes 75 of what happened. What doesn't matter? Because God uses that to measure. He doesn't measure by numbers, he measures it by faithfulness.

Humility, Faithfulness, and True Ministry

Now on the flip side, a healthy church should be growing. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. We can't take pride in our decreasing and saying, well, we're the frozen chosen, it's just us four, and there's a door if you don't believe us, because we're right to the core.

I've seen churches get real small, and they say, well, that's because we're preaching the gospel, brother. Everybody else isn't, but we are, and it's just us 25 people, and that's why we're so small. Usually, that's not good either.

They never make a dent into the community. They don't want to invite people to church. It's just us and our community, but God said, go out, get out, and minister. So let that just be an encouragement, because I know

I mean, I remember when I first released my first book, there was a publisher involved, and she said, okay, we want to just see if you can speak to people, and I said, okay, that's a good idea. Well here's where you're going to be, Grace Resources.

We've got about 12 people homeless right now, and they need some health advice. That's not what I had in mind, and it was a wonderful two hours. I mean, these people I mean, it was great, but once you get your mindset out of that definition of success, because God's got to pound it out of you, now you're ready.

Now if you'll go wherever I'll send you, now I can use you, but when you've got these high and lofty ideas where you want to be up on center stage, you want your name on the PowerPoint, you want to lead this, and you want to lead that, I can't use you now, because you're doing it in your own flesh and your own strength, but when you humble yourself, and you submit to my will and say, Lord, wherever you send me, if there's somebody on Beach Avenue that needs to hear your word, I will walk up and down that street to proclaim the gospel.

It'll be difficult. It'll be tough, but the power of the Holy Spirit is there, and that's where fulfillment is. You cannot discourage somebody like that very easily, because they'll go out, they'll minister, and they'll say, that was wonderful.

I don't care what happened. God's in control, not me, and I just see it all the time, and my heart breaks for people who measure success by numbers, or worse yet, by revenue. I mean, that's good in the business world.

You're not going to make it, but ministry, if you're trying to get involved in something and get on a marketing this, and money schemes, and all this, and try to make some money out of it, that's not good, and we get frustrated with that as well, so that's what I talked about last week.

I don't want to spend too much time on it, which I already did, but you got the point, right? The key is, how do we measure success? How do the disciples measure success? God, however you want to use me.

Be careful, that's a dangerous prayer, it got me up here, okay? I like traveling, coming back in the airport, just go, go, never, you know, so be very careful, but it's the most fulfilling life you'll ever know, but you have to mean it.

How do you want to use me? That might mean ministering to those caught in sex trafficking, gone through an abortion, Care Net, Grace Resources, they're looking for people to help the churches to put together things to go and feed the homeless over there.

I mean, there's tons of opportunities. If you want to do something, just let us, the leadership, know. We know there's plenty of needs. Actually, there's too many needs, and we can't quite get to them all, so keep that in mind.

The Disciples, Their Calling, and Their Suffering

Now, we're in chapter 10. This is interesting because it lists all the disciples, and when we talk a lot about the fate of the disciples, you have to realize that we only know the fate of two according to Scripture, so I don't, the rest, the fate of the rest of the disciples has been carried down, and you can call it tradition, you can call it Josephus, one of the Jewish historians records some of these things, Greek historians, Roman historians, you know, so the tradition carries weight because many of these disciples went out, and they did missions, and from those missions, churches were planted, and they remember those disciples, so the only record we have of really what happened to these guys is Judas Iscariot, right?

Not good. You know of any people who've named their kids Judas recently? No? Me neither. Well, just keep that in mind. We know what his fate is. What's the other fate? We know that James, the son of Zebedee, was executed by Herod in about 44 AD, and then you'll see there in chapter 10, he lists the disciples, and of course he doesn't list Paul yet because Paul is later on, and we'll get to that as we study further, you know, into Acts and different things, but when Judas was killed, they said, well, let's, you know, the Scripture must be fulfilled, that there's 12 of us, let's cast lots, they chose Matthias, Matthias, whatever you want to say it, but later on, then Paul comes on the scene, and Christ calls him directly, knocks him off his beast, and so there's a discussion there.

Well, did they act prematurely and not see, well, we've got to do this, and that happens a lot. Doesn't it? Well, God's not happening, there's 12, you know, this isn't happening quick enough, let me make this happen.

God says, no, no, no, that didn't work, but we don't know that for sure. Matthias, Matthias, he was obviously a disciple, obviously did some good things, but Paul was the one that looks like Christ chose to be that 12th disciple, but look at what happened to them.

And Peter and Paul were both martyred in Rome about 66 A .D. during the persecution under Emperor Nero, and if you guys don't have a book called Fox's Book of Martyrs, I'd recommend that book highly, Fox's Book of Martyrs.

I don't know if you want to read it, you know, before you go to bed, but you want to read it, and it will make you understand how precious the Gospel is, number one. Number two, how thankful we should be in this nation.

Instead of criticizing it, sometimes we need to say, oh, Lord, thank you for it, Lord, thank you so much. Would you turn the Titanic around? It's been struck, everything, all kinds of filth and perversion is filling into the oceans into our society, but Lord, we believe in revival.

I do. I'm not just telling you guys that and going home and saying something else. I believe that God can revive His people. He can return the way we're church. And sometimes it's good to be disgruntled at the condition of the church, because from that disgruntledness comes prayer and fasting.

Without that, we wouldn't do anything. Oh, the church is doing great. We don't need to do anything. Let's just go to In-N-Out Burger after the service, but we say, Lord, we're in dire straits according to your word.

I mean, when you look at this and look at Facebook or look at this, look at the news or look at this and see the direction of the church, it's like, uh-oh, wow, this is not good. This is not good. These are dire times that we're living in.

But there's hope and there's encouragement, but I don't want to get off on that rabbit trail. So let's look at this. Paul was beheaded. Peter was crucified upside down at his request since he did not feel worthy to die in the same manner of his Lord.

Andrew went on to what is now the Soviet Union. Christians there claim that he was the first to bring the gospel to their land. He also preached in Asia Minor, Turkey, and in Greece, where he is said to have been crucified.

Doubting Thomas, remember him? Tradition has him preaching as far as India, where the ancient Christians revere him as their founder. They claim that he died there when he was pierced through with the spears of four soldiers because of the truth.

Philip ministered in North Africa, Asia Minor, where he converted the wife of a Roman procouncil. In retaliation, he had Philip cruelly put to death because of the truth. You see a consistency here? We think we're just going to wiggle out of problems because of the truth.

Isn't it interesting? Oh, Philip built a nice house in Samaria, 4 ,000 square foot, had a nice lap pool in the back and jacuzzi and grapevines hanging down and had lots of parties there. We just don't read any of that.

Sometimes I wish we did, but Philip ministered in North Africa, Asia Minor. We read that. Matthew, the tax collector and writer of the gospel, ministered in Persia and Ethiopia. See what God did is he sent them out.

Israel started in Israel and he spread them out, up Asia Minor and into Greece and Rome and all these in Italy. Matthew, some of the oldest reports say that he was not martyred, while others say that he was stabbed to death in Ethiopia because of the truth.

Bartholomew had widespread missionary travels and various accounts of how he meant his death as a martyr for the gospel. James, one of the least, one of at least three Jameses referred to in the New Testament, the Jewish historian Josephus reported that he was stoned and then clubbed to death because of the truth.

Simon, the zealot, ministered in Persia and was killed after refusing to sacrifice to the sun God. Matthias was the apostle chosen to replace Judas. Tradition sends him to Syria with Andrew and to death by burning.

Counting the Cost of Christian Discipleship

What happened to your best life now? What happened to all your problems will be washed away. What happened with everybody's going to like you and love you and what happened to that? Because see, I believe we need to count the cost.

We need to tell people the truth. If you think for a minute that I'm going to tell my kids that Christianity is a cakewalk, you got another thing coming. Because you prepare them for battle. That's what's happening, I believe.

A lot of these kids are going into our universities, unarmed, untrained, and unprepared for a secular humanist professor who just guns them down. And life gets challenging, it gets difficult, and they just give up.

But you got to prepare the soldier for battle. You think a Marine just shows up and they say, okay, here you go, here's your badge and your gun, and we're going to send you here. Have you heard of something called boot camp, where I was watching some of the Navy SEAL training?

Wow. I would just tell you up front, I don't think I would make it at my age. There's no way. When they try to get you to quit, drowning, freezing, all these things, and then they whittle down from whatever the number is down to half of that.

And then from that, even less of that. Why? Because they're going to go sell cupcakes? Well think about that. Parallel is Christianity. Paul says, fight the good fight, be a good soldier. Where in the world do we come up with this idea that it's a cakewalk, that we're going to live in mansions and drive wonderful cars, and everybody's going to love us?

I think somebody in the Bible said, count the cost. I think that somebody was Jesus. What man before building a building would not count the cost? What king would go to war without first counting the cost?

You might say, well Shane, that's a little discouraging. How are you going to get people to come to the gospel? Well, you tell them they're on the road to hell and there's a savior. If that doesn't wake them up, nothing will.

But what we try to do is, come on, you'll love Jesus. Just try him out. Your life will be great. Would you just try him out? Don't just raise your hand or say a prayer with me. Gosh, I can't hurt, right?

I mean, I'm going through a lot right now. Is he going to help me out? I want to say, no, maybe not. It might get difficult before it gets better. There might be a storm before the calm. There might be a fight before the victory.

That's what the Bible says. If you can tell people the truth, they go into it armed and prepared and ready for battle. Now, I don't want to paint this grim, hard, I mean, the blessings of God I love as well.

I mean, I can sit and give an hour sermon on the blessings of God, the power of God to redeem, to set free, to renew, to financial blessings, relational blessings, setting us free, opening tremendous doors.

That's great. But we can't walk through life expecting just the roses. We have to say, Lord, even if you don't do that, I will still follow you. But if you do, I would really appreciate it. And that's a balanced view of Christianity.

If you look at the Bible, it costs Christ his life. Think about that. Christianity costs Christ his life. Not just something quick beheading like somebody, I mean, that was painful, that cross. If you read exactly what the scourging did, the whipping did, the crown of thorns, I mean, just a crown of thorns, I'm done.

Stick some big nail, start thorns in my head and scalp, so when I start bleeding down my face, taking that off and these soldiers are done. Remember, I've said that before. But what he endured, the cross, it cost him something.

So I get a little offended when people think sin's no big deal, Christianity's no big deal. It's warfare. People want to kill us because of what we believe. It's that light and darkness, it's that struggle.

Truth and the Witness of the Disciples

So let's look at the lessons from the disciples. And we've talked about all these before, but I want to take a little bit different approach. And I want to throw out another book that I just read, finished last week.

It's called If You Bite and Devour One Another. And get ready to be convicted. If You Bite and Devour One Another, and it talks, the whole book is on the feeding the flesh in the church and biting and devouring and gossiping and being critical and tearing each other down, the whole book.

And it gives examples in churches, examples in ministries, and I've seen it here. I mean, we're all susceptible to the lust of the flesh pulling at us. It's by Alexander Strauch, I hope I pronounced his last name right, S-T-R-A-U-C-H.

If You Bite and Devour One Another is a great resource. But the first lesson we obviously get, and you see I was pointing out in all the examples I gave, oh, I didn't mention John, did I? John, of course, the only one who is generally thought to not have died by martyrdom, but by natural death.

And this is the John that was exiled to the island of Patmos and wrote the book of Revelation. And unless you think that life was easy, nope. Exiled on that island, even tradition says he was thrown in a pot of boiling oil, made it, and then why?

Because of the truth. And that's where we see the lies of the disciples. So the first lesson I gleaned from this, and I hope we all can, is this lesson of truth. They died for the truth. And this is significant.

This is what you should tell other religions, doubters. These people did not die for a lie. You think they went around proclaiming God's message and were killed because they knew we really hid the body, we're just not telling anybody.

Think about that. You're going to be stoned, you're going to be clubbed to death, you're going to be hung upside down, you're going to be crucified, you're going to be martyred because you know that you're telling a lie?

Heck no, as soon as the Roman soldiers came and said, oh, we made it up, we made it up, here's the body, here's what happened, we're not. But to go and actually die for a lie, they didn't, they died for the truth.

So one of the things we can learn from the disciples is this element of truth, and you're going to hear this a lot in the culture today. This whole thing of truth, speaking the truth in love, and the people don't want to hear it.

But that's one of the first lessons that I gleaned from, is that truth must be reinforced, truth must be encouraged, and truth must be nurtured. Truth either grows or withers depending on whether we are feeding it or starving it.

Just like sin, right? Truth plays the same role here. Truth must be reinforced. What I mean by that is how are you going to reinforce truth? MTV? No. Fox News? O 'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter, CNN? What about CNN?

Larry King? Are they going to reinforce truth? Of course not. How do we reinforce truth? Right here. That's why I preach all the time. Because someday we're going to get it. Someday we're going to say, listen, I've been in the Word all week, I can't believe the change in my life.

You reinforce it. You're either reinforcing error or you're reinforcing truth, and you wonder why truth seems distanced because you're reinforcing error. I mean, I just walked into a place this week, and they had these crime shows on where there's dead body laying on this thing, and they're trying to investigate how the person died.

I'm like, how can you even watch this? I mean, I'm not prudish. I've got a pretty good hard stomach, but I'm like, what's the point? You just sit at home all day long and watch this stuff, and you wonder why truth has fallen.

Why do you have no passion for truth, no passion for God? Because truth must be reinforced. It's leaving on a daily basis. Guess what? You've got to bring it home. You've got to bring it back into your mind.

That's why these books I'm reading, the Bible, get into those at night. I read those instead of all this other stuff that's pulling you away from God. I see a lot of you guys, some people in here, especially nationally, but they send me all kinds of blogs and articles.

You've got to read this. You've got to read this. You've got to read this. It's somebody from the former CIA, or the intelligence, or the government, or they used to work in the military, and all this conspiracy, and all this stuff, and all this stuff.

It's just mind-boggling, mind-boggling. You wonder why they're wavering in their faith, why they're in fear factor mode. Because they're not reinforcing the truth. They're reinforcing all this stuff that we ought not be concentrating on.

So truth must be reinforced. What does that word reinforce mean? You guys know in construction, right? Reinforcement, reinforce. Sometimes you put something in the ground, it's being pulled out, it's not holding a fence post, whatever it is, you've got to reinforce it.

So you dig all the way around it, pour tons of concrete, and let that thing sit overnight. You're not hitting that over with a car, let alone some gust of wind. You're reinforcing it. So the battle in our culture 50 years ago, you might have got away with not as much Bible.

But today, in this culture, with all the junk that's coming in the mind gate, and everything is battling against the truth, everything going, I mean, we start to say this is a sin. People in the church say, no, no, it's not.

No, no, it's not. You don't know the truth. Oh, maybe I don't. We just keep backing down. So truth must be reinforced. So let me tell you right now, if you are dying on the vine spiritually, if what I'm saying is irritating, if you're like, I don't know anymore, you've got to go and reinforce it.

Reinforce it. I mean, think about the kids, right? They're not getting the word of God in them. They're getting vampires, they call it witchcraft, all this stuff they're watching. They wonder why I'm denying the truth, mom and dad.

Well, yeah, of course. It hasn't been reinforced. You don't plant truth here and it just stays here forever. You've got to continually be meditating and reading upon the word of God. That's why D .L. Moody said, right?

I'm a leaky vessel. Guess what's leaking out? Truth, the filling of the spirit, all that, you know, you go into time of prayer and fasting and it's leaking out by the next day. By the next day in traffic and at work and stressed out and all these problems, it's gone.

So, many people just coast, oh, I'll just wait until church. Oh, Lord. That's not enough. I could stay up here for three hours and that's not enough because you've got to offset the pull. The flesh and the spirit are against each other.

Truth must be reinforced. Truth must be encouraged. Truth must be encouraged. So, stop reading things that discourage truth. Stop hanging around people that discourage truth. Stop hanging around or whatever is happening in your life.

Is it encouraging the truth of God's word or is it discouraging you? Truth is either encouraged or it's discouraged and it must be nurtured. You know what that word is. You can picture a loving mom just having a newborn child.

She nurtures that truth and truth must be guarded. How do you guard truth? Once you put it in your heart, you've got to guard your heart. By everything I'm saying. If you don't know what I'm saying, go back and click last year's sermon and the sermon before that and the sermon before that, all the way until you get caught up.

We've got hundreds of sermons up there now. That's how you nurture the truth. It must be heard. Truth must be heard. That's why I said if you're dying spiritually, if you're dying spiritually, if you're feeling distant from God, don't raise your hand, but if that's you, if darkness and depression are reigning in your heart, maybe truth has fallen.

That imagery there, right? Maybe that's what happened. It's happened in your life. I can't believe you did that, Shane. Truth has fallen. Many of our lives, right? Again, maybe it's my vantage point. The people I counsel, the people I talk to, truth has fallen.

And then I turned right to Isaiah 59. We look for light, but there's darkness. For brightness, but we walk in blackness. We grope for the wall like the blind. And we grope as if we have no eyes. We stumble at noonday, even though it's twilight.

We are dead men in desolate places. We all growl like bears and moan sadly like doves. We look for justice, but there is none. For salvation, but it is far from us. And then what's the next sentence say?

Because truth has fallen in the streets. When the God's people reject the truth, that's the outcome. When they distance themselves from truth, that's the outcome. So if it's fallen, what's the solution?

Pick it up. Exactly, that's what I love about God. I don't just say, too bad guys, get out of here. You're done, toast, I don't have any hope for you. Secular psychologists don't have any hope for you.

The therapists don't have any hope for you. Dr. Phil, Oprah, they don't have any hope for you. They have no hope, they do. Let's just sit down and talk about it. Maybe we can work it out, if we can pinpoint something back in your childhood.

Yeah, it's called sin. So all you have to do is pick up the truth. Not obviously physically, but sometimes physically. Pick it up and embrace it again. That's the one thing about God, and that's why sometimes these messages are similar, because it's not 50 different things and 100 ,000 different things.

It's just return. Are you distant, would you return? Are you far from me, return? Draw close to me? It's just, guys, come on, come on back, come on back. So that's why I'm always saying, come on back.

It's that easy. That was the solution. Truth has fallen in the street. So Isaiah said, pick up the truth. Call on God again. Reread his word, get into his word. Let a broken, humble heart and repentance bring you back to a loving father.

The quickest solution for a depressed mind is to stop everything you're watching and viewing and who you're listening to and go take a long drive with the word of God and some worship. I don't want to do that.

Well, what's that tell you? I'll tell you why, because there's a battle going on. The flesh loves that. The Spirit's saying, come on, let's go do this. You go up into a cabin someday with nothing but the word of God to eat, nothing to drink, but water and the Holy Spirit, and you'll either break out of there or you'll have a breakthrough.

Because you're confronting, you're going to God and saying, listen, I take you to your word. I'm gonna seek you with all of my heart. I'm gonna pick up truth and I'm gonna embrace it again. I'm gonna run to you.

Not walk casually, Lord, I'm running to you. That's what embracing truth is and that's what's turning to truth is. The second lesson we can learn from the disciples is one that, again, our culture has lost sight of, and that is this issue of perseverance, right?

Perseverance Through Trials and Discipline

Perseverance. I've got a lot of scriptures I was gonna go through, but time isn't gonna allow me to do that. But it's interesting, and Peter, he's talking about Peter, right? We just read about Peter.

He's talking about this divine power has given us everything we need for godly living. And sometimes we say, yeah, that's good. But then you gotta keep reading, right? Remember the paragraphs and the chapter numbers and all that was just added 500 years ago.

You're used to sit down and read Peter as you would read a letter. But sometimes, oh, look at that nugget of truth. I'm gonna embrace that. But you gotta keep reading. He says, for this very reason, because of this, for this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness into goodness, knowledge into knowledge, self-control into self-control, perseverance into perseverance, godliness into godliness, mutual affection.

They will keep you. They will keep you from being infected and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Those things. So we can't just claim a promise without obedience. Many people do that.

I have the promises of God, but I'm living like hell. I've got the promises of God, but I'm not experiencing him. Well, because you're giving up on everything. There's no commitment. There's no self-control.

There's no knowledge of getting into God's. It's just holding on to a promise. But a promise has to be backed with action. They're married. That's what Peter said here. They will keep you. These things, perseverance.

And many never experience this divine power of God because they lack perseverance. In Christianity, it's funny, an athlete, tons of perseverance, right? You wanna talk about what an Olympic athlete does in the course of a year?

You think they're a nutcase, fanatical. Every food is measured, every exercise gauge. They don't associate with anybody that's gonna take them away from that. Night on the towns? Oh, no, sir. In bed by eight, up at five.

It's just regimen, regimen. They know all about perseverance. Starting a business, parenting. I mean, what parent says, oh, this is not working out. Little Johnny's not listening, I'm outta here. Go find somebody, go out the door locked, go find somebody else.

We know about perseverance in everything, but in Christianity, when it comes to our faith in God, it's like, well, if it's hurting, it's not God. No, God says, no, when it hurts, draw near to me. Think about this.

In our deepest trials is when God does his deepest work. In our deepest trials, that's when God does his deepest work. You think this preaching and this passion just came from sitting on the couch relaxing?

It takes broken men to break men. God had to hit me with the sledgehammer of life and chew me up and spit me out so I'd come out weak and broken before him saying, as strong as I thought I was, I'm nothing, Lord, I need you.