Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, November seventh. What should you do when you face a situation that doesn't seem to get better? Let's find out in this podcast by learning principles that can give you the courage to keep going. When I think about what Paul suffered in life, I have to ask the question, what motivated him to keep on keeping on when everything in him would have said, quit? That there is something that Paul knew, something that he did that every single one of us need to understand in our life because we're all going to be tested or have been tested many times to just say, you know what, I don't have to put up with this, I quit, I give up, I walk away. So, I want us to look at the reasons, the motivations that Paul had to keep going when the going got very rough. So, the first one I want us to notice here is this, one of the things that kept Paul from giving up and kept him keeping on keeping on was the awareness that God was with him. And I think in the second Corinthian letter and the eleventh chapter, this is a very challenging chapter to me when I think about what Paul went through, what he suffered, and yet he never gave up no matter what he experienced in life.
So, if you look at that eleventh chapter for a moment, this is a familiar chapter to most Christians, but a lot of people who hear this will not be. But Paul says, for example, he was arguing and they were criticizing him for who he was and he said in verse twenty-two, Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham?
So am I. Then he says, Are they servants of Christ? I speak as if insane, I more, in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times, listen, without number, often in danger of death, five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and day I have spent in the deep. I've been on frequent journeys in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers from the sea, dangers from among false brethren. I've been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food and cold and exposure.
Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure only of concern for all the churches. I wonder how many of us would have survived that. And so, what is it that made it possible for him to survive that? Now he was, listen, he had a lot of reasons to give up and quit, but he did not.
Why? Because of his awareness that Almighty God was with him. And when I think about so many things that the apostle Paul said about God's presence with him, he said, for example, in Acts twenty-three, which is going through a difficult time, he says, the Lord stood by him. He knew the Lord was with him. The Lord stood by him. And he said to him on another occasion, don't be afraid, I am with you. And so, all through Paul's epistles, we are continually reminded that God is with us. And so, what kept him from giving up when he had so many reasons to give up was his awareness of God's presence.
You and I need the same. And that is, we have the right to experience the strength of God. You have the Holy Spirit living within you. That is, you have God on the inside. And He's not going to call you, watch this carefully, He's not going to call you to do anything, face anything, experience anything without Him giving you the strength to do it. He says He causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him, to those who call according to His purpose. And sometimes He allows us to get in situations we think, oh God, I don't know that I can handle this.
Why does He allow some of those things? Because it gives Him the opportunity to show us how real He is, how faithful He is, how powerful He is, and how adequate you and I are when we put our trust in Him. Then of course, the life-changing lessons that God teaches us. You think about how much truth you know.
You know, if you just come to church Sunday after Sunday after Sunday and you take notes week after week after week, and in the first service, two people came down the aisle. One of them said, I've been watching in touch for twenty-four years. The other said twenty-seven years and taking notes. I think about how much truth I know they've heard. If they've listened, they've heard truth after truth after truth after truth after truth after truth after truth after truth.
And this is why I said to you, write it down, write it down, write it down. But the apostle Paul, he was an awesome student of the Word of God. And on one occasion it says, for example, he hadn't been saved very long.
He went to, instead of going to Jerusalem and talking to the apostles, he went to Arabia to get by himself so that God could teach him the truth. And when you think for a moment, if we didn't have the epistles of Paul, what we know about sanctification, salvation, the substitutionary death of Jesus, the atoning death of Jesus, however what we know about declared righteous before Almighty God, all the doctrinal things that we believe, and so much of what he has written to us, he wrote from a jail cell. I mean, when I think about having been through all that, instead of sitting in a jail moping about how difficult things are, and oftentimes supposedly as follows, would be outside the jail criticizing him when he's in the jail doing what the will of God was for his life. And so, you can have a morbid, moping attitude, or you can rejoice in the Lord always no matter what's going on. So let me ask you a question. Have you ever been in trouble and God said, do it yourself?
Has He ever said, I'm leaving you. I'm going to let you handle it. You take care of it. I'm finished with your moping and groaning and griping and wondering where I am.
No. He just lets us mope and groan and whatever it might be. Then when we get serious enough to get right with Him, what does He do? He always comes through and we understand, as that old song says, we understand it better by and by. God loves you.
He wants the best for you. And when I think about why people give up, they give up because they don't know Him. They give up because they don't believe Him.
They don't trust Him. They feel hopeless instead of thinking, my hope is in Christ, in Christ alone. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus Christ and His righteousness. You know, when people say, well, things are just not going my way.
Ask yourself this question. If things aren't going your way, before you give up and quit, ask yourself this question. I wonder if things are going God's way and I'm out of His will, I don't understand it, and He's up to something I'm not aware of.
It just may be that what you're going through that's difficult and tough and you want to quit and give up is the very thing God is using to draw you to Himself, cause you to cling to Him, open your eyes, help you to see who He is and what He's up to in your life, and teach you to apply the truth. All of us know more truth than we probably apply. So, I would ask you this. When you take notes, for example, on Sunday morning and you go and put those notes somewhere, I hope you put them all in the same place, but do you ever pull them out during the week? Do you ever hear anything on Sunday that during the week you think, oh God, I needed that? Well, where are your notes? Are you fumbling around trying to figure out where they are?
The apostle Paul, listen, he loved what God taught him. And so, in jail, instead of moping around and having a pity party, what's he doing? He's thinking about you and me. Now, he doesn't know two thousand years later we're going to hear this and see it. But what is he doing? God is leading him to write down what God is teaching him and what he's experiencing in a cold Roman jail cell.
He could just be complaining. But listen, he didn't give up. He didn't quit. And he didn't have words to say about Nero and all the rest of them. He, listen, he applied what he knew, where he was, what he had to apply in order that those who followed him would know the truth. I say about Paul, hallelujah, praise God that he didn't give up and quit. And that he wrote it down so you and I have it to live by. Then, of course, the fruit his truth has produced through him. He said, for example, on his missionary journeys, one thing, the churches were growing and they were increasing in membership all the time. And if you'll think about it, he wrote these epistles to these churches, to Corinth, to Philippi, to the Galatians, to the Romans and so forth. And if you turn to the book of Corinthians and you just read that book, no pastor would want to be the pastor of the first Baptist church in Corinth.
That was a terrible crowd. They were guilty of about everything you can think of. And if you read the book of Corinthians, it's all about his correcting this sin and that sin and the other. Did he give up?
No. And think about this. When he would establish a church and leave a few people, then he'd come back around his second and third missionary journeys. Sometimes when he came back, they were just in the mess. They'd let false teachers come in and they didn't know what they believed sometime.
And they fussed and thought just like people do today. At some point you'd think, Paul would say, you know what, enough of this. I've had three missionary journeys and y'all are still acting like this. And yet, the gospel survived and two thousand years later, we were worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ and sending missionaries all over the world, preaching and teaching the Word of God. And our names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. And you and I are eternally secure because of the gospel. Then, for example, the reward He's promised us. One of the reasons that we should never give up is thinking about what God has provided for us. And if you'll notice in this passage we read a few moments ago, Second Timothy, he said to Timothy, In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who love His appearing. Paul knew he had an awesome reward coming. And you say, well, I don't think I have any.
Well, let me ask you a question. You raise your children to be godly, big reward. Love your husband or your wife, reward. You do your best, reward.
Do your best in school, reward. Share your faith, reward. Stand up for the truth, reward. And you know, when we say, Lord, we just go on and on and on. There are a thousand ways God can reward His children. And you see, there's not a single legitimate reason for a child of God to give up and quit and throw in the towel. Listen, you have God on your side. He's not only on your side, He's living within you. He's promised to be there.
He's promised to be with you always. And He's promised to enable you, help you, strengthen you, encourage you in every circumstance of life. And people say, well, you know, if you just understood what I was going through.
Well, maybe I do, maybe I don't. I know somebody who does and that's God. And God understood whatever you're going through before you ever started going through it. And listen, He's ready and willing to equip you so that you won't give up right before the best happens in your life. And the reason I repeat that is because I've seen that so many times in so many different ways in people's lives.
And I've seen it in my own life. And right before I think, Lord, I can't handle any more of this, that I'm going to open some awesome door and I thank Him and thank Him and thank Him that He didn't let me give up and quit because He never intended for us to do that. So, I'm saying to you, because God is saying to you, whatever you're facing in life at this moment, no matter how difficult it is, how tough it is, how discouraging it is, and all the reasons and the evidence you have for walking away and all the proof that you have that things are wrong, remember there is a God in heaven. And if you're saved, He's living within you.
And that God will take you through whatever you're facing in life no matter what. You say, well, I'm giving up. I'm giving up on my job. I'm giving up on this.
I'm giving up. No, you're giving up on God. As a follower of Jesus, when you give up, you're giving up on Him.
Your boss or your marriage, somebody else can't do for you, you're giving up on God. You don't give up on the supreme power in the whole universe. You don't give up on Him. And the one who loves you enough to have given His Son to die on the cross, you don't give up on Him. So, remember who you're giving up on.
And when you do, you won't give up. Well, I think also the vision of the cross always before us. That's what Paul said, the vision of the cross always before Him. And he makes an awesome statement in the sixth chapter of Galatians. And when you listen to what he says here and you look at the life that he lived, and here's what he says. He says in the fourteenth verse, but may it never be that I would boast except for that one thing. He says, except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. He said, the cross has made it possible for me to survive any and everything. Because it's at the cross, the atoning death of Jesus Christ purchased our salvation. At the cross, the atoning death of Jesus Christ purchased everything we have.
It's the atoning death of Jesus Christ that shed of His blood that makes our forgiveness a living reality. You don't give up. You don't quit. And around us today there are lots of people who want to give up.
There are lots of people who want to quit and they can give you some rather, shall we say, good reasons from their perspective why they should walk away from a situation or why they should quit. But not in God's viewpoint. He has the best for us and He's willing to give us the best, but He doesn't bless quitters.
It won't happen. Christ sacrificed His life for our salvation. And when I look at the Scriptures and see what Jesus did, He didn't give up. I can't give up. The apostle Paul didn't give up. We can't give up.
And here's the issue. He will reward us for not giving up. The reward may not come to glory or you may be rewarded today or tomorrow or next week or next month or next year. He doesn't overlook our obedience, our faithfulness, our loyalty, our devotion until our keep on keeping on. Then of course, naturally, our love and devotion to Jesus Christ. That should keep us keeping on no matter what. And Paul said in a beautiful way in Philippians, he said, For me to live is Christ. For me to die is my gain.
So think about that. Isn't that really what you and I want for our life? That we want to live the kind of life that when people meet us, it won't take them long to hear Jesus in their voice. It won't take them long to see Christ in our actions.
It won't take them long to feel the love that you and I feel for them. He said, For to me to live is Christ. That was his whole perception. For to me to live is Christ. And he says, Now to die, I gain by that. But for me to live is for Christ to live. And so if I should ask you, Do you love God? Naturally you'd say you do. Do you love Him enough to serve Him? Oh yes. Do you love Him enough to suffer for Him? Well, it depends on what that is.
No. If we love Him, we won't give up, we won't quit when the going gets rough. When the suffering gets hard and the pain becomes intense, we don't give up and we don't quit. We keep going because Jesus kept going, the apostle Paul kept going, and the teaching of Scripture is that you and I keep going likewise. And Paul talks about God being rich in mercy and grace and love toward us, and He is. And so many of God's people oftentimes they want to give up and quit. And I'm saying to you, don't give up and quit.
Ask God to give you wisdom and to give you strength to keep going. And I can think of some people in my own mind and heart that have been through very, very difficult times and I wondered how they made it through. Because they trusted God.
Because they believed the very things that we've talked about here, maybe didn't think about them in that way. But if you had asked them, do you think that God is with you? Yes.
Do you believe He's listening to your prayers? Yes. Are you reading the Word of God? Yes.
You could just go right down the line and all the things we've said, they would have said yes to, and yet nobody ever laid it out as a principle, laid it out in an outline for them. So let me ask you a question. Today, what are you tempted to give up on? What are you tempted to walk away from? Or are you willing to say to Him, Lord, I'm hanging in here no matter what, because I know that if I'm in here, You're in here with me, by my side to see me through.
And it's my prayer that whoever you are, if you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, I can tell you, you're not going to make it. You may say, well, I have so much money, you can lose it. You know, I have great health, you can lose that.
I have a great family, you can lose that. You can lose anything and everything. Listen, but if you're saved by the grace of God, you can't lose that. You can't lose your salvation. You can't lose your relationship to Almighty God. And God has called us to trust Him as our Savior through Jesus Christ, lay our life before Him, and allow Him to live His life through us and to demonstrate to the world that Jesus Christ is who He says He is. He will do what He says He'll do, and He's more than capable of fulfilling that promise. I would plead with you, don't walk away, don't quit, don't give up, but just tell the Lord, Lord, I'm going to trust You to see me through this. I'm going to trust You because You said, You will never leave me nor forsake me. And God, I believe You always tell the truth. Thank you for listening to Part 2 of The Courage to Keep Going. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia. ... ...
