It Is Well | Perseverance - Pastor Christian Lake

We wrestle with miracles, unanswered prayers, and the kind of perseverance that forges real faith when life hurts. 

• Inheriting a legacy of prayer across generations 
• Refusing the idea that hardship always means secret sin or weak faith 
• Paul’s thorn and God’s answer that grace is sufficient 
• Redefining faith as loyal allegiance that holds under pressure 
• Job as a test of endurance and integrity with our lips 
• Faith forged like gold through trials and refining 
• Church history examples of perseverance under persecution and illness 
• Miscarriage, grief, and the shock of gratitude in suffering 
• Perseverance as a group project and a warning against suffering in silence 
• Expectation as hope that waits and acts differently 
• Rejecting entitlement that assumes God is withholding good 
• tThe Holy Spirit interceding when we do not know how to pray 
• “It Is Well With My Soul” as a picture of steady trust 

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Speaker

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Rock Family Sermon of the Week. For more information about our church, please visit the RockFamily.com. Now to join us for a message from our special guest speaker.

You Inherit A Legacy Of Prayer

SPEAKER_01 0:20

There's something that I want to make clear to everybody before I get into the material today, something that I want, uh perspective maybe that we could have to help contextualize the material that we're going to explore today, but also to help the synergy and agreement and unity in our church across demographics, across age groups, across uh uh I mean any group that you could possibly imagine in our church and at all of our campuses. Uh and the idea really starts with this one simple phrase, and it's this that I don't believe there's a single person that's in this room by accident. And when I say that, I don't mean it in the providential sense, God opened up my eyes and there was a billboard with a rock on it, or God stopped me in traffic and I saw the sign. I mean that if you're in this room and you're my age or younger, you are likely sitting in a seat that somebody else worked for. I say that to say that uh there's families, there's mothers and fathers, and there's individuals that are in this room and that are at every single one of our campuses that before this place was ever a spark in our imagination, prayed and worked and tilled the spiritual soil for young people to come in and be able to experience what we got to experience this morning. And I'm not just talking about this morning, and this is not just something where I want to give people their flowers or I want to, it's it's to give us a very real perspective as the next generation that there are people that are in this room that have been I'll say it like this. Helen Purcell was assigned to me one week, and she's so funny because she's always like, Oh, you're my pastor, da-da-da. And I'm like, I'm pretty sure you grounded me when I was a kid. But she was assigned to me one week on a Sunday morning, and she came up and she was like, you know, uh, Pastor Christian, we prayed for this church. It's like, yeah, duh. We all pray for this church. And she's like, No, no, no, no, before this church ever existed, Jeff and I prayed for a church that had a heart for the community. And we prayed for a church that had a heart for pastors, and we prayed for a church that had a heart for the next generation to stir up young people and raise them in the way that they should go. And we prayed for this church before it was ever even here. And there's countless families, and I'm there's no way I could possibly name all of them. I tried to name some of them. Uh the Reyes family. Uh Nancy Reyes is the patron saint of expectant mothers, the Carter family. Serious, if she finds out that you're having a kid, she'll find you in the room and just corner you and hold you down and pray for you. The Carter family, the Fernandez family, the Reyes family, the Spiegelberg family, the French family, the Tal. I mean, there's there's too many today. How many of you guys know a family that's been here since the dawn of time that prayed for an environment to benefit you? And I'm not just talking about praying, I'm talking about working. We sit, my wife and I, this is so weird, this is so creepy. We sit on the back porch and we cry, thinking about all the times the Kirkland family blessed us. My wife talks about how Tim and Jeanette Kirkland made their family feel so welcome. And not just that, years and years and decades later, every single Sunday, asking, How's your sister doing? How's your family doing? And now here we are over a decade later, and every day when I drop my son off to school, the first person who greets him is Pastor Tim Kirkland, and he looks at him and he says, Billy Willie. And Billy Willie giggles, but Billy Willie doesn't know that Billy Willie wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Pastor Tim. And we'll sit on the back porch crying, and she's like, Oh, Pastor Tim prayed for me. He hugged me today. And I'm sitting on the back porch and I'm like, Dan Spiegelberg taught me how to tie a square knot. And you guys don't know. And this is not to shame anybody, this is not if you're young, like, oh, you didn't work for this. This is to inspire us and let us know that there's a family business that we're invited to inherit today. That there's an inheritance, and I think when you know what your family legacy is, you steward your inheritance differently. And today I want you to know that that inheritance is prayer. There's a prayer that birthed this church, there's a prayer that that that families and and and parents that that cost them something. And it would break my heart if anybody walked into this building and thought that this place existed because somebody cut a check. People paid for this environment. My kids, when I look at my kids and I see my daughter singing, Jesus loves me, this I know. Somebody prayed a prayer 30 years ago. So my daughter could experience that. So your daughters and your sons could experience that. I want to inspire my generation and the next generation and you kids sitting up there to understand and learn the stories. And I want to remind that generation, you're not done yet. You are not retired. I humbly say to Pastor Steve and Susan Sharp, you are not done. Mine is uh uh, and I think they're not here because I think they probably heard in the spirit that I talk about them, but Pat and Henry Lee. Henry Lee wrote a book in 2009 that inspired me as a young kid. He took his experience from the Apollo program and wrote a book called Son of the Star Maker, where he expressed how the the sun and the moon and the solar system and the science behind it expresses and illustrates the creativity and specificity of our creator. He essentially turned the Bible into math. And you might think, okay, after that he's gonna spend his years going further and further into academia and writing more scholarly books, but he didn't do that actually years later. He wrote a children's book. So I would have something to read my children before bedtime. It's called Where Do the Leaves Go? And it's about how the Spirit of God moves here and there and brings new seasons into our life. And now every night before bed, my daughter, my two-year-old daughter, walks up and she puts a grimace on her face and she says, I want the leaf book. And then I have to say, I'm sorry, sweetheart, I already told you we're reading something else. The book of Revelation. We're in chapter seven, it's about to get really good. God is about to pour out the vials of his wrath, and I need you to pay attention. We're not reading the leaf book again. I say all of this to say that there's a generation that we need desperately to reach back so we can carry this vision that God's put on this house, the mantle that God's put on this house, and I'm so thankful. I see it every day. Last weekend. Prayerfully today, at all of our campuses, the French family over in Fayeville. I could name countless families that have been here for years toiling. And I don't want to belabor it, but I want to say that today we're gonna talk about difficulty, we're gonna talk about perseverance, but we're also gonna talk about a prayer that's produced.

Why Perseverance Shapes Our Prayers

SPEAKER_01 7:38

What kind of prayer is produced from the difficult moments in our life? Weep uncontrollably, check. Pause for laughter, check. Alright, so before we get into that, we want to, you know, after Easter weekend and all the excitement, all the joy that just exists in this room, I want to take a brief moment to look at a couple passages and see what kind of uh uh just abundant life and what kind of uh uh just uh prosperous life we as believers get to walk into today. And and Pastor Scott, I think illustrated it greatly the way that I would like to say it is that if you make Jesus your choice, you'll drive a Rolls-Royce. And we're gonna see that in a passage today in 2 Corinthians. I have a clicker, but I really don't want to use it. I will, but if you could pull up this, oh, thank gosh. Oh my goodness. Gosh, who's that? All right, let's read it.

Paul’s Hardships And The Thorn

SPEAKER_01 8:34

I'll read it off my computer. You guys can see it on the screen right here. Uh, this is the abundant life that we get to look forward to. Paul describes it in great detail. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was at sea on frequent journeys, and dangers from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night and hunger and thirst, often without food and cold and exposure, and apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Was not expecting that. Paul, that does not sound very cash money of you. Um, okay, hear me out. Let's think. Maybe Paul is struggling with some kind of secret sin. Or maybe Paul is not praying the prayer right. Why might Paul be experiencing these hardships that he uh describes to us in graphic detail? You know what? Maybe he didn't bring it to the Lord at all, and we'll see it later, and he's gonna uh uh uh pray into it. Let's look at the next the next passage, uh the next chapter where he describes it. Second Corinthians 12, his prayer. So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded, everybody say, pleaded. I pleaded with the Lord that it should leave me, but he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more in my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Let's pray. We ask for your word to come alive, the words to jump off the pages and divide soul and spirit, joint and marrow and discern the intentions of our hearts today. We pray, Lord, that your logos, your word would be so present in the room and we'd have the opportunity to interact and respond to it, Jesus. And pray that the fruit that your Holy Spirit produces in each and every one of us would nourish a starving community today. And we'll be careful to give you all the glory, honor, and praise in Jesus' name.

Miracles And The Pain Of Waiting

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Everybody said, When I was 12 years old, I met my first love. And it was a soccer ball. I fell in love with a game of soccer at a young age, and I played it all hours of the day into the middle of the night, barefoot in my driveway. There was even uh uh an older Panamanian man that I called Uncle Tony, who took me under his wing, and he would take me to local Takeria and buy his family goes to this church, by the way. This is not a made-up story. Uh, he would take me to the taqueria and buy me tacos and then take me to underground soccer pickup games where we would play with adults and criminals. Uh this is 100% true. And if he's here or if his family's here, they will there's they're not gonna raise their hand for this. Um I love the game of soccer, and I remember specifically when I was 12 years old, getting so excited for my first tournament. Were any guys excited this weekend? Any guys that went? Are they here? Are they back yet? Yeah, okay, they didn't love it. Okay. I loved it. I was so excited for my first tournament when I was 12 years old. It was gonna be one of my first tournaments away and traveling, and I was practicing and I was all geared up and ready, and I got my new cleats and my new shingards, and everything was so ready and prepared for this tournament. And then a couple weeks before, I started feeling intense pain in my right knee. So my parents took me to the doctor and we got an x-ray and we went to evaluate the results of that x-ray, and the doctor says, You have a hole in your knee, which evidently is not a great place to have one. And he said, We're gonna have to do surgery on your knee. But before we uh understand how extensive that surgery is gonna be, we're gonna have to do an MRI. So a few days later, we did an MRI on the knee. A few days after that, we go back to evaluate the results of the MRI to see how serious my surgery was going to be. I failed to mention that before this MRI, my parents prayed for me. We walk in the doctor's office and the doctor looks at us, I remember it like it was yesterday, and says, I don't know what to tell you. There is no longer a hole in your knee. You will not need surgery. And that weekend I played in my soccer tournament, and I scored one goal. My prayers didn't, my my parents didn't pray some fancy prayer. It wasn't particularly eloquent, it wasn't loud, it wasn't in the church service, it wasn't in the town square, it wasn't, didn't have fanfare, there was no oil involved, there was nothing like that. They just prayed that my knee would be healed. Not to nothing against any of those things. I'm just saying this is what happened. I'm detailing the the events that took place when I had an x-ray that said one thing and an MRI that said something else. Fast forward about 10 years, I'm again playing soccer, only this time on a mission trip to Guatemala in a gutter with some little kids, and my knee buckles. My left knee. Not a whole lot of pain, but but a lot of intense discomfort. Kept buckling, thinking, what the heck is going on? What is this? I got really nervous, but thankfully I'm I'm on a mission trip in another country where God still does miracles, and I'm surrounded by all these young Christians filled with faith. And and and two of the fellow students that were there with me uh took me aside that night after dinner and after our service, and we we uh uh went over to like a little staircase and we started praying together. One of them sitting right over here. Ethan Sharp is his name, he's right there. You remember this name? It was Ethan Sharp and it was uh Phil Robinson, so the three of us, and we're filled with faith. And Phil's the one who's calling us out and says, Come on over here. We're gonna we're gonna pray over your knee, and there's gonna be no more pain, there's gonna be no more discomfort. And we sat on that staircase and we prayed for what felt like six hours. Two or three were gathered, and we had faith. And we kept praying, and we kept shifting the way that we did things, and we kept shifting the wording. All right, Phil, now you pray. All right, Ethan, now you pray. All right, Christian, now you pray. All right, now stand up and try something that you couldn't do before. And I would stand up and try something that caused irreparable damage to my ear. Every single time, getting worse and worse, like some sort of Pinocchio that's just breaking apart. Just the cartilage and bones just rubbing together on my knee. Every time I tested in faith, the miracle. And we would I'm trying different things, like, all right, maybe Phil's not believing. Phil, you go stand over there. Ethan's gonna pray over the knee. All right, that didn't work. Phil, come back. Ethan, you're gone. All right, Christian, no, it's your knee. You can't leave. You have to have the faith, Christian. So your knee might be healed, and finally, late at night, Phil called it, time of death, 10:30. We're done praying over your knee. And we went home, and like any other young adult would do, I waited six months to see if it would pass. It did not. And then I went and saw our very own Dr. Stan Davis, one of my heroes, uh, who uh um you know called me in to evaluate my knee, touched my knee, and then recoiled like he touched a hot stove uh and said, Yes, your ACL is gone. No X-ray, no MRI. He said, You you have what's called a loose knee. Okay. Uh performed the surgery, and obviously it went great. Dr. Stan also, too, by the way, is just one of my heroes. That's the second favorite thing that he's ever done for me. My favorite thing, as there was a time years ago, this has nothing to do with material, this is completely gratuitous. But uh uh uh my wife and I were on our anniversary to Roos Chris Steakhouse, and we're dressed to the nines, and we got, you know, a big seafood platter, and we got steaks, and we got creme brulee, and we felt like we were like in the great Gatsby or something, you know. This is incredible, incredible dinner. We paid infinity dollars for it, but it was a great, great dinner, and then we're getting to the end of it. I I look over, and three tables over, Stan Davis is sitting at a table in cargo shorts and a t-shirt eating a chicken sandwich. And that to this day is the most baller thing I've ever seen in my entire life. And I aspire to be as cool as Dr. Stan, but next Stan did uh the surgery in my other knee, and then to this day I've had no issues. I've run races, marathons, ultra-marathons, and no problem either my knees, you know. Um but it does beg the question. I have a dilemma. I have to believe that God does miracles. I don't mean that optimistically. I mean literally, I have to believe. I have empirical evidence. It would be admissible in court. I have an x-ray that says one thing and an MRI that says the other. I have actual evidence. There's no way that anybody could convince me that God doesn't answer prayers and do miracles. I am therefore a Pentecostal. I believe that today, I believe that today there are people in this room that are going to be supernaturally healed in an instant. I don't know any other way to say it. And at the same time, I have to be prepared to go through something.

Rethinking Suffering In Charismatic Faith

SPEAKER_01 18:56

I'm sure that plenty of people are gonna come up afterwards and be like, well, God healed your knee through Dr. Stan. And certainly there's elements of that are true, but but I need to, as a Pentecostal, have a better way to process hope deferred. As a spirit-filled believer, I have to have a better way to process when things don't go my way. And not to diminish anything, I have to have a better way to process suffering. This is not a certain a series about suffering. This is a series about perseverance. When we look at the characters like Paul and the characters in Scripture, and then through church history and the saints and the heroes that we've all referenced in Pentecostal revivals, that all made a huge difference. One thing that characterizes all of their ministries, they all experienced intense persecution and tribulation. That doesn't sound like a Rolls Royce. And so often in charismatic circles, I hear, well, it's a secret sin or it's a lack of faith, but it's weird because the only preachers that I know that are having secret sin exposed are the ones that have everything going for them. That have all their prayers answered, that live in mansions, and that have the megachurches and all that kind of stuff. It's not the guy who's experiencing chronic illness. I have to re-evaluate the way that I look at difficulty. Not secret sin, not lack of faith, although those definitely are not good. But I I look at characters throughout history like the early church fathers, the reformers, Charles Spurgeon, who dealt with chronic illness, his wife dealt with chronic illness, the Wesley family, Ian Bounds, Watchman Knee, all these people that made incredible strides for our faith. All had prayers that were never answered. Why is it that Paul says he will boast in his weakness? And his charismatics, we don't talk about them at all. We don't talk about difficulty, we don't talk about suffering, we don't talk about trial and tribulation, we don't talk about chronic illness, we don't talk about miscarriage, we don't talk about uh betrayal, we don't talk about loss. These are the dirty little secrets that we hide in the closet when we have company over for fear that they might be perceived as a lack of faith. But what if it was the exact opposite? I guess we'll see, we have to finish the sermon.

Job And The Accuser’s Test

SPEAKER_01 21:45

I'm gonna look at Job chapter one. We're gonna do a little bit of Job. We have to, what's in there? What do you want me to do? Just pretend like it's not? Uh Job chapter one, right here. Just read the first line right here. Now there was a day. When the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them. First question: Where is heaven's security system? Does anybody ever think about that? Like if I'm a security guard in heaven, I'm sure there's a process, and we have a process here for who's in and who's out. But if there's one guy that I know is not allowed, it's Satan. But he squeaks his way in there. Many of you guys know the story. He he tells God that he's you know going to and fro on the earth. Uh, and God says, Well, have you considered my servant Job? He's an upright man. And Satan looks at him and he says, Well, that's only because he has everything going for him. It's only because everything's great. But if you let me test him, I'm sure that he will fail. God says, Do what you will, but don't touch his flesh. Finally, he takes his children, his house, his, his, his riches, leaves his wife. Um, that's his wife. I'm not talking about why, I'm talking about his wife. That's his wife. I don't know. She's a bad guy in the story. We'll read that later. We gotta get serious here. All right, so I want to say something uh uh uh uh just about the way that the term Satan is used in the Old Testament, because this is a little bit more complicated than this uh uh, you know, the devil or mega evil uh uh nemesis to God that we see here. When we see the term Satan in the Old Testament, almost every single time it's included the definite article. So ha satan is how it's written in the Hebrew. That translates to the Satan. The Satan. The interesting part of this is not a proper noun. The vast majority of the times you see, and it's later on in the New Testament where you get, you know, the the Satan, what Satan means literally is adversary or accuser. Adversary or accuser. As a matter of fact, in Numbers 22, Balaam is traveling on the road, and the angel of the Lord stands before him and blocks his path, and the scripture describes him as being the adversary to Balaam. The angel of the Lord. What does the Hebrew use for the adversary? Hasatan, describing the angel of the Lord. So here in Job, really the point, the reason I'm saying this is here in Job, we're not necessarily uh most likely looking at this great devil figure or the serpent that we see in Genesis or this antithesis to God. What you see here is likely a spiritual being that's operating in the role or office of accuser. Think about it like a prosecutor in a court system that's doing his job. Why do I say this? A lot of times we see difficulty and we see trial and tribulation, and we think that this is a calculated plot to destroy us, but oftentimes I will posit that it's actually a test meant to prove you. And that changes the way that we handle the test. Let's look at Job chapter 2. Then his wife said to him, Do you still hold fast to your integrity? This is after Satan has afflicted his body, and he's scraping his wounds with shards of glass. His wife says to him, Curse God and die. But he said to her, You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God and shall we not receive evil? And all this, listen to this, and all this, Job did not sin with his lips. So over this series, you know, we're gonna you know jump back and forth in Job. It's not all gonna be there, and we're not gonna do, but I encourage everybody in this room, especially those that are struggling or have that feeling of hope deferred, to go back and read it. Job is one of the greatest philosophical writings ever throughout all of history, not just in scripture. And it's it's debated what the actual purpose of the book is because it seems like maybe it's trying to answer why is there suffering in the world, or or the problem of evil, or if there's such a good God, then why do bad things happen to me? But the problem is the book doesn't actually answer that question. So you have a narrative structure in the beginning where the bad things happen to Job, and then you have 30-something chapters of dialogue, of just arguing, and then you have another narrative section at the end, and it seems more likely that the narrative structure is trying to answer the question in a suspense way. Will Job's faith endure the trial? That's the question that we're asking when we're reading the book of Job. And there's all sorts of accusations that are put against him. I say this to say again, this is not a series about suffering. This is a series about perseverance, power, and a type of prayer that is only produced by pain. So I want you guys to read Job and think about uh um what his wife said to him as we go into this next little section. We're gonna do uh one of my favorite Reese isn't here, he's he probably heard I was speaking. Um Reese and I had to memorize this chapter uh um in high school together. We both went to Westminster. We had to memorize Romans 8. Uh he did, I cheated on some of my tests. Um we're gonna go through a few of these. I'm not gonna go to any of the Roman slides yet, so don't this is just one here, but but Romans 8 kind of describes again Paul. So this guy who's described his suffering, described his perseverance. What else does Paul say about difficulty? How does he describe or how does he put in context his suffering? This is Romans 8, verse 16. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and have children then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. So I want to take that passage in Job where Job did not sin with his lips in the discussion of will Job's faith endure the trial, and take what Paul is talking about here in Romans 8 about suffering, not only being a reality for the believer, but a prerequisite in sharing with the glory

Faith Is Forged By Perseverance

SPEAKER_01 28:28

in Christ. The first thing that I want us to think about when it comes to difficulty and trial is this it's faith is forged by perseverance. Faith is forged by perseverance. We're gonna have to have a better definition of what faith is to understand, because sometimes we think that faith is just uh uh um um you know praying crazy prayers, or faith is just you know hearing the Spirit and doing what he says, and it's a little bit more robust than that. Faith, the Greek word pistis, is often translated as allegiance or believing loyalty. I believe God, I believe that he does what he says he does, and it because of that I orient my life around what he says. Faith is also believing despite the evidence. Because if I'm allegiant to God, that's not dictated by my circumstance. 1 Peter 1 says it like this. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials. Why? So that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him, and rejoice with joy, that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Job will delve into the same type of language in chapter 23, when he starts to get a little bit more confident in his uprightness, and he says, But he knows the way that I take, and when God has tried me, I will come out as gold. So when I say perseverance or or enduring suffering forges our faith, when when Peter says testing, this is not like some uh uh uh showing God your spiritual ID. Look, God, I have faith. It's not uh it's not a Royal Ranger's badge. When I say testing or proving, I mean a forging. I mean a faith that is put on an anvil, a refining, a sharpening. One thing that I want to do throughout the series, if they want to do it, I'm gonna do it, uh, is kind of look at some of these characters throughout history.

Polycarp And Courage Under Fire

SPEAKER_01 31:01

One of my favorite ones is uh um uh early church father named Polycarp. Um Polycarp was a disciple of John the Beloved. Uh very, very close with him. As a matter of fact, I think John probably read Revelation before nightnight time to Polycarp. It's an incredible callback. I probably deserve a little bit more than that, but it's fine, it's fine. Uh so so after you know, the disciples, many disciples are martyred, uh, Polycarp continues to go on, and there's immense persecution in the early church. We've all heard about that, but very seldom do we actually look and see what the actual persecution was. We hear, oh, the early church was persecuted, or they, you know, had it rough. We don't know the words that were spoken or the language that was used. Polycarp uh after he is martyred, uh the early church writes a book describing in detail his martyrdom. So essentially the early church and the Roman Empire Emperor and all the proconsuls and all the general regents would go around and find Christians and ask them to renounce Christ or uh uh uh burn incense for Caesar. So you've got to do one of those two things. If you don't do either of them, you're dead. That's a problem. So finally they hear about this great amazing Christian Polycarp, and the proconsul goes to Polycarp and he says, You must renounce Christ. We are going to kill you unless you renounce Christ. So now Polycarp is here in the the the testing and the forging of his faith, the most difficult part of his long, long life, the the persecution is now at his doorstep. He is staring death in the face. You must renounce Christ. And he looks the proconsul in the eyes and he says, 86 years I've served him, and he's never caused me injury. How could I blaspheme my Lord and Savior? It gets better than that. Proconsul starts to threaten him. He says, Well, I have wild beasts, I'll send them on you. And he says, Send them. That's it. That's pretty gangster. Then when the proconsul realizes that it's illegal to send the beasts after the games, he says, uh uh uh, well, then I'll burn you at the stake. And Polycarp looks at him and he says, Why would I be afraid of a fire that burns for an hour and then is extinguished while you seem to be unaware of the fires that await the ungodly. Pro-consul says, All right, we're gonna light you up, puts them on a pyre, and they go to nail his hands uh uh to the pyre, and he says, I don't need it. Leave me up here, and the God who strengthens me will help me remain unmoved. So they tie his hands, stands on the pyre, defiant. He prays this prayer. I'm just gonna read part of it. Praise this prayer before they light the pyre. He says, Oh Lord God Almighty, the Father of your beloved and blessed Son, Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the knowledge of you, the God of angels and powers, and of every creature, and of the whole race of the righteous who live before you. I give you thanks that you have counted me worthy of this day and this hour. That I should have a part in the number of your martyrs in the cup of your Christ and the resurrection of eternal life. Both soul and body. They light the pyre. And they record, they record it in this book. All of the early church agrees, they light the fire, and the fire encircles him and does not touch him. And it says that his flesh did not look burned, it looked like gold. So because he wasn't being burnt, the proconsul had to send an assassin with a dagger to go stab him. It says that his blood extinguished the flames. I said this is a series on perseverance. It sounds a little bit more suffering. I'm not saying any of these things to say, like, hey, get ready, this guy's coming for you. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that when we look at these church heroes and we look at the all these people that endured intense suffering throughout faith, what it tells me is not, I don't think about all the suffering that's awaiting for me. I think of the grace that is afforded to believers. There is a spiritual perseverance that only comes from the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. And I need access to it today. I don't know about you, but I need access to that grace today. There's been times where I was dealing with something and I didn't know how to respond. I need access to that perseverance and that grace, and it's available in this room. It's gonna be a rough one today, I think. This is one of my favorite parts about the Easter weekend that we had that was so great, is that we did two services, so it proves that everyone in this room, if we needed to today, could stay here for four hours.

Miscarriage And Saying Thank You

SPEAKER_01 36:10

When my wife and I uh first got pregnant, we waited like five years uh uh to get pregnant. My wife was always like, Oh, we got let's get pregnant, let's get pregnant. It's like we can't afford her, all this kind of stuff, and it was all lies. It was me being selfish and all that kind of stuff. So finally, I think what happened was was Ben and Julie got pregnant, and the money was like, they've only been married three years. It's like, okay, it's all right. I'm just kidding, it's all a joke. So we get pregnant, and uh, I remember we're so excited, and we go up to first or second ultrasound, and we're we're in the elevator, and uh um, we're in the elevator to go up to one of the first ultrasounds, and my wife looks at me, and I promise you, amongst something, and she goes, By the way, I prayed that it would be twins. You don't think you should have run that by me first? You don't think we should have talked about this? I don't know if we're financially ready for God to answer our prayers. Sure enough, we go up to the ultrasound, and the lady looks at the screen and says, Here's baby one, and here's baby two. For the rest of the day, if you want to see the most smug woman walking around, God answers my prayers. I'm praying for that parking spot, I'm praying for that handbag, I'm praying for that house, I'm praying for everything under the I mean, I was miserable. The rest I was happy about the twin, but I was miserable. Oh my goodness. Um uh fast forward a few weeks, and it's a couple days before the end of our first trimester. My wife starts to experience pain. We keep saying, Oh, it's fine, I'm sure it's nothing. Oh, it's fine, I'm sure it's nothing. She says, you know what, I'm just gonna go just to just in case, just to be safe. You know, I'm here, we're doing uh Mark Rutland's here, so he's doing a class or whatever. Uh, so I'm also experiencing pain. Uh kidding, no. Mark Rutland. Uh and I leave because she says, Meet me, meet me at the doctor, and we go to the doctor, and they uh uh um you know pull up the ultrasound. We're sitting there for a while, and then finally the doctor comes in and he says, You've lost the twins. And of course, we're both undone. There's so many people in this room that know the exact feeling that I'm talking about. There's countless people in this room that know the exact feeling that I'm talking about. We didn't even know how many until afterwards. Just undone, inconsolable. My wife is is is in tears, I'm in tears. And then something happened. I stand up and I walked over to my wife and I held her, and I with God as my witness, the first words out of my mouth were thank you, God, for allowing us to steward your children, even for a moment. I want you to hear me. This is not to brag about myself because I don't even know where those words came from. This is to say that in that moment a faith was being forged. In that moment, I realized that faith is more than just praying for strangers at the mall, faith is being able to say God is good when all of the available evidence points to the contrary. That when the details of my circumstance are whispering in my ear, saying, curse God and die, will it be said of me that I did not sin with my lips? I want to tell you, if you're in this room today, there's a grace and there's a perseverance, and that perseverance will give you a faith. Imagine what kind of prayers you can pray. Imagine what kind of mountains you can see move when you have a faith that's forged by perseverance. The craziest thing is like two weeks after that, my wife looks at me and she goes, you know what? I've never felt closer to you, and I've never felt closer to God. Riddle me that, Batman. It's an insane thing to say. And then that night that she said that, uh, you know, people had set up a meal train for us, and people were sending us food. And that night, uh Lindsay Nelson sent us food, and we opened it up and we saw that it was Korean food, which is our favorite food, and we cried for two hours. This is not an exaggeration, this is not a joke, because at the end of that two hours I cried more because the food got cold. Not because we were excited about the food, not because it was exactly what we wanted, not because we were famished, but we cried because somebody in our church saw us. Not just saw that we were hurting, not just saw that it was difficult, but saw who we were and what we needed in

Do Not Suffer In Silence

SPEAKER_01 41:24

that moment. And I say that to say this that perseverance is a group project. And there's so many of us in this room that have never experienced that because every time we experience suffering, we experience it in silence. And if I can say anything else in this room, if I can say anything else to every single one of you sitting up in that section, and everything, anything to you RDS students that are over there in Fayetteville right now, please, whatever, if you are carrying something right now, do not suffer in silence. Do not internalize it, do not just keep it to yourself. If there's something that you're going through, I want you to hear me. I know it's a little aggressive. Poor Razie, I'm like pointing right in her face. Please don't suffer in silence. The church is here. The body of Christ is here. The Bible says that Christ Himself is grieved because it's his body. He feels, he's able to sympathize with your weakness because he feels it. So why would I hide it? How can I hide my pain from the body? We need hope. There's hope, right? There's hope. What is that hope? Let's look at the next passage, Romans 8 passage.

Hope That Drips With Expectation

SPEAKER_01 42:48

This is it. This is right after he said, if we indeed suffer with Christ, if we indeed suffer with Christ, what'll happen? For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who suggested subjected it, in hope that the creation itself would not will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons and daughters, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we are saved. Now, hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes for what he sees. But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with eager expectation and Patience. What does this mean? Perseverance drips with expectation. I get this image, and I didn't want to say this, but I have to because I wrote it my notes of next time I go to an Italian restaurant and the waiter comes up and says, Tell me when to stop putting Parmesan cheese on your pasta, I'm not going to say anything. And I want to see how long you go. And if you say, is that enough? There's no rule that says there's only a certain amount of Parmesan I'm allowed to have on my pasta. So keep going. Until the room fills up with Parmesan cheese. And there are no survivors. This is what happens with, this is such a silly, but you have to deal with it. This is what happens when you persevere. There's a condensation on the outside of the bottle. There's an outpouring, there's an overflow, and that overflow is expectation. When you're experiencing the pains of childbirth, how many husbands in the room have felt so helpless standing at the hospital bedside? The pain and the agony, and there's nothing that I can do besides hold your hand and get you ice chips. I can't do anything, but there's an expectation. How many wives have experienced the pain and the agony of having to care for a husband who has a low-grade fever? And there's nothing that you can do because he won't take medicine. Because he doesn't want to feel better yet. He just wants you to feel bad for him. I'm saying if I see 99, I'm out. Like, I'm sorry, sweetheart, you got the kids. I need an ice pack and an Xbox. We're waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. We're waiting for that eschatological, that end times reality. We're waiting for the moment where the kingdom is realized fully and all the way. And while we're waiting, there's pains, there's suffering, there's a perseverance. But what I mean, there is not a person on this earth that is more eager for the return of Christ than somebody who's suffering. As a matter of fact, I think many of us don't want him to come back at all. Because we got it too good. You see this in the early church. The early church, up and for the first couple hundred years, we're almost entirely premillennial. You know, you don't have to get into the terms, but really it was a it was an idea that Jesus was coming back any second. Jesus is coming back tomorrow. This is Polycarp, this is John, this is the disciples. He's coming back any second. And then 300 years later, uh Christianity becomes the religion of the Holy Roman Empire. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, certainly, but I do think it's interesting that immediately after that, the whole of Christianity said, Well, maybe we'll hang out for a while. Persecution wanes. And people feel content and comfortable. There's not a person on this earth with more expectation than somebody who is currently persevering. My wife wants us to come back every time she's in traffic. I'm joking. I'm not I'm not joking. I shouldn't be coming for her. What is it? Is this something that's up here or something? It's up here, okay. It's not me. I'll give you an example. If I want my house to be clean, spotless, I just need to invite somebody over. Fellas. Hello, are you with me? We will have a team there first thing in the morning to make our house spotless. Why? Because we're expecting company. When you're expecting, you act a little differently. You act accordingly. When you're expecting somebody, it's like the ten bridesmaids and the lamps. Like when you're expecting that somebody is coming over, you act differently, you dress differently, you think differently. There are some of you that came to church today expecting something. Some of you came dressed differently. Most of you are dressed different than you were dressed yesterday. Why? Because you were expecting to meet somebody here today. I'm expecting to meet somebody here today. You act differently. Again, this is not to convince you that God demands or even wants us to experience suffering or pain. This is just to prove that there is a reservoir of grace available to those of us who are in Christ Jesus. You know, what is the different um uh reaction? Expectation. You know, how do I have expectation when I have hope deferred, when my prayers aren't answered, when my my situation is not uh uh uh uh fixed, when when you know I'm in the waiting period or whatever it is. What you know, what is the posture, and why why do sometimes people fall away and sometimes you know people stick

Expectation Is Not Entitlement

SPEAKER_01 49:48

with it? And this is, I think, one of the primary reasons, and I think it's actually one of the bigger issues in our society today is this is that expectation is not entitlement. Expectation is not entitlement, and entitlement has caused some of the most insidious movements throughout all of history, throughout all of history. You think of communism and fascism and Nazi Germany and all these people that felt like something was was was uh being kept from me, something's being withheld from me. That's what that's the difference. Expectation says, I serve a good God who's making a way from me. Entitlement says something is being withheld from me. And you see it all the way in the garden. The serpent and Eve. He doesn't want you to eat that fruit because you will be like God. To two people that were already like God, it's being withheld from you. Expectation says, even though I can't see it, God has something from me. Expectation produces love and sympathy and care, entitlement produces hatred and violence. Cain killed Abel. I heard somebody say it this way, told my buddy Tyler that everyone's talking about like, how did it get so bad? How did the world get so violent? The world never got violent. Cain killed Abel. The third person on earth killed the fourth. Cain killed one of the three people that he knew. If you knew Cain, you had a 66% chance of survival. At one point, Cain killed 25% of the earth's population. That's worse than any massacre in history. Like if you think there's some bad cities in our country, try downtown Eden when the sun goes down. It's a dangerous place. And the route is the same. Something is being withheld from me. Something is being kept from me. There are people in the world right now, in our country right now, that are blaming other people or other groups of people for their problems. And I would wager and bet most of them don't actually have any problems. Expectation will view your life through the lens of what he has waiting for you, and entitlement will manufacture suffering when it doesn't even exist. How many guys know people that complain about everything and don't even have anything to complain about? And then you'll meet somebody who has gone through every ringer that you possibly could, and they have the sweetest, gentlest spirit, and a gratitude. Entitlement might cause you to write a book called My Struggle. You might know it by its German title. I'm not saying this to be silly, I'm saying this to see, look, the trends throughout history, all the revolutions and all the times where people said the means of production are being withheld from me, so hundreds of millions of people need to die. Or the the future of my society is being withheld from me by some group of people or some individual. And I'm struggling because of somebody else. That's entitlement, expectation. My future is secure in Christ Jesus my Savior. All right. What do we do with this perseverance? And when we what do we do? Um miss any characters. Oh, I missed a character. Yeah, do we have? Yeah, I missed both of these. Yeah. Augustine says it like this For if punishment were obviously inflicted on every wrongdoing in this life, it would be supposed that nothing was reserved for the day of judgment. He goes on further in uh his book, City of God, and says that if every good deed was met with manifest generosity, we would assume that there's nothing reserved for us in the resurrection. This is one of my favorite St. Teresa of Avala. Uh Saint Teresa of Avila ran away from her home at like 18 so she could go be in a monastery because she loved Jesus so much and she wanted to spend all her time with him. And almost immediately she was struck with a degenerative neurological disease. And then after that, uh she went to a doctor to see a cure, and the cure actually temporarily paralyzed her. She famously prayed with God and said, God, if you if this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few. This is what else she said. She said, Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you. All things will pass away. God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing. God alone suffices. This is not somebody with some prosperity. This is not somebody with some everything's gonna be okay. This is somebody who's gone through the ringer and has an expectation. You can hear the expectation in their voices. Romans 8, 26.

The Spirit Prays Through Weakness

SPEAKER_01 55:32

Let's see how Paul finishes this out. And what we do with this expectation. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought. But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose, for those whom he forenew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, in order that we might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those who he predestined, he also called, those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified. Here's what this means for us Expectation turns out prayer. It turns out prayer. The Spirit is interceding with us, giving us groanings, praying for us in a way that we don't even know how. And I have to wrestle, I have to wrestle with the mystery that God doesn't desire or cause suffering, but simultaneously will use our suffering to produce Christ's likeness in us. These two characters are some of my favorite and especially important to all of you, whether you know them or not. Susanna Wesley, the mother of Methodism. Most of you moms will probably hate her because she had a schedule and she taught all our kids Greek and Latin, and she held these prayer meetings on Sunday night, and she says we have to do this. And it's like, alright, okay. No, she's an amazing, amazing hero of the faith. Susanna Wesley had 19 pregnancies. Out of those 19 pregnancies, she lost 10, either in childbirth or in infancy. Two of the remaining children grew up to be John and Charles Wesley, two of the greatest heroes. This is what Susanna Wesley said. Help me, O Lord, to make a true use of all my disappointments and calamities in this life in such a way that they may unite my heart more closely with you, cause them to separate my affections from worldly things, and inspire my soul with more vigor in the pursuit of true happiness. Susanna Wesley, every week, because she had so many children, despite her calamities, uh, each night of the week, she had an hour that she would devote to an individual kid, where she would teach them and she would pray with them, and she would instill a method for spiritual revival and renewal and prayer, and she would pray with her kids. And John Wesley's uh prayer night, uh, who is the you know, started the Methodist Church and one of the great heroes of our faith. Uh, John Wesley's night to pray with his mother was Thursday nights. John Wesley would later go on to start prayer movements all over the world, but it began when he modeled his prayer movements after the nights that he met with his mother on Thursday nights. First of all, mothers, let this be encouragement. That the meetings that you're having with your kids right now could have eternal effects. The intentional time that you spend with your kids might have eternal effects. John Wesley also didn't have it easy. He dealt with chronic nosebleeds and great serious illnesses throughout his life. And this is what he said Bear up the hands that hang down by faith and prayer, support the tottering knees. Have you any days of fasting and prayer? Storm the throne of grace and persevere therein, and mercy will come down. John also said, I am no longer my own, but thine. Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with what you will, put me to doing, put me to suffering. I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pro thy pleasure and disposal. So this is a guy who had prayers that were never answered. This is a guy who had mom who had a mom who had prayers that were never answered. This is a guy who experienced pain and who experienced suffering. What type of prayer might perseverance produce?

Travailing Prayer And Unshakable Love

SPEAKER_01 59:42

Last couple examples, and maybe the worship team can come up and we can pray. Uh one is the Hebrides revival, one of the last great awakenings, again, uh inheritance for our tradition. Uh uh there was a guy who did his PhD work on it and went and um interviewed 23 of the survivors, not survivors, uh uh witnesses. Yeah, they didn't die at the revival. Yeah, not survivors, they weren't surviving a revival, they lived in the revival, and then there were eyewitnesses. And he he went and interviewed these eyewitnesses and he said, uh uh, what happened? What caused this amazing great awakening? What did it? Was it Duncan Campbell's preaching? Was it the worship? Was it the marketing? What made this amazing revival? And every single one, Dean Jackson showed me the story, every single one of those eyewitnesses says the difference in our revival was travailing prayer. Travailing prayer. Let's look at this last passage in Romans. This is our hope. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who is raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword, as it is written, for your sake we're being killed all the day long. No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. This sounds like faith to me. That sounds like a faith that was forged in perseverance and lashes and shipwrecks and distress. This sounds like a faith that says the enemy might touch my my flesh, might might touch my material belongings, might touch my situation, might touch my circumstances. But one thing I know for sure, there is no height nor depth. And if you're wondering, like, all right, you know, I hope you're encouraged this morning.

The Story Behind It Is Well

SPEAKER_01 1:02:29

I hope, I hope, I hope you're inspired this morning. I hope you feel exhorted this morning. I hope you feel stirred up. And the grace that's available to you. You're probably wondering where the it is well comes from. Any of you may know the story. I knew the story, but haven't heard it, you know, uh explained in detail. Horatio Spafford in the late 1800s was a Christian businessman uh uh who was planning a vacation with his family. They were gonna go on a boat from New York to France and spend some time together as a family, his wife and his four daughters. The last moment, a business obligation, caused Horatio Spafford to stay back in New York to meet up with them later. So while his wife and his daughters were on the ship, halfway to France, the ship sank. His wife survived, but all four of his daughters died. About a week later, Horatio gets on a boat to meet up with his wife, who was rescued and taken to France. Uh uh and he's traveling on this boat, traveling across the same ocean, traveling across the same path. And at one point the story goes, it's pretty well recorded. Uh, he's in the cabins, uh uh, you know, the captain's quarters or whatever it is, and he asks the captain, like, hey, do we know, do we know where the ship sank? And the captain looks at him, he says, Yes, we're crossing over that very water right now. And he leaves the captain's quarters and goes back to his cabin. And he writes a hymn. And the name of that hymn was It Is Well With My Soul.

How To Join And Stay Connected

SPEAKER_00 1:04:17

We hope and pray. This message was encouraging and impactful. Join us live on our website or Facebook on Sundays at 9 and 11 a.m. You can stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram at the RockFamily. Have a Jesus.