Choosing Perseverance Over Defeat "“ Part 2

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God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program. On today's edition of Pathway to Victory. What do we mean by perseverance? Somebody has said that courage is the desire to begin pursuing your dream. But perseverance is the determination to continue pursuing your God-given dream in spite of unexpected setbacks, undeserved criticism, and unrelenting hard work. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress.

You know, few things are more inspiring than seeing Rocky reach the top of the stairs at the Philadelphia Art Museum or watching Rudy lead his team to victory. So how can we experience that same kind of victory in our own lives? Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress teaches us to choose perseverance over defeat. Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.

Dr. Jeffress. Thanks, David. Before we begin our next Bible study together, I'm eager to remind you about one of our best kept secrets at Pathway to Victory. I'm referring to the magazine we publish on your behalf called Pathway Magazine. I hope you're taking advantage of this beautiful publication.

While many organizations are retreating from print, we decided to go for it. And our readers love receiving Pathway Magazine. This full-color periodical contains a wealth of relevant articles on life issues, devotional material, interviews, and much more. In fact, I'm prepared to send you three complimentary issues of Pathway Magazine when you go online and follow the simple instructions at ptv.org. And then I'd also like to send you a book I've written for you.

It's called Choose Your Attitudes Change Your Life. In 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17, Paul wrote, If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come.

Well, I talk with Christians every single day, and most will confess that they don't always feel like a new creature. In fact, many are frustrated by the relentless problems that come their way. Well, we don't get to choose the challenges that come our way, but we can choose our response to them. My book gives you 11 ways to choose victory over defeat, beginning with your attitude. And when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, I'll be pleased to send a copy to your home right away.

David will give you our contact information later in today's program. But right now, let's give our attention to Philippians chapter 3. I titled today's message, Choosing Perseverance Over Defeat. We're looking at 11 biblical attitude choices that are necessary to experience the abundant life Jesus promised in John 10 verse 10. And today, we're going to look at the second of those attitude choices, choosing perseverance over defeat. There are two great illustrations in the Bible of perseverance and why it's so important. The first is found in Joshua chapter 6, the story of Joshua and the walls of Jericho.

You remember the story. God had given Joshua a dream that is of inhabiting and taking charge of the land of Canaan, the promised land. The only problem was there's a giant obstacle between Joshua and his dream. And it was that nine acre city of Jericho and the large wall that stood around it. In Joshua 6 verse 2, God said to Joshua, see, I have given Jericho into your hand with its king and the valiant warriors. He said, Joshua, I'm going to give you this city, but I'm not going to do it without your effort.

And he goes on to detail the instructions of what he would have to do. God told Joshua, now I want to take your men and I want you to take the men and I want you to march around this nine acre wall once a day for six days. Then on the seventh day, I want you to march around the wall seven times. And on the seventh time, you're to have the priest blow the trumpets and the people are to shout and the wall will come down. And so Joshua did that. He got the men out. They didn't understand, but they said, Joshua, you're the leader.

We'll follow you. But I'm sure by the fifth day, they started to have some real doubts. Joshua, are you sure you got the instruction right? We don't see any sign of any walls falling down. If they had given up the fifth day, they would have missed the blessing. But they kept going. I imagine by the seventh day, they were tired of lugging that armor around in that hot Palestinian sun.

It's awfully dry down in Jericho, but they kept doing it. And by the end of the seventh time when they blew the trumpet and shouted, the walls instantaneously came down. My point is they were ordered to do something that seemed to make no sense whatsoever. And yet God blessed them.

Why? Because they had faith. Here's another great story of perseverance. The story of Naaman and the unusual command. It's found in 2 Kings 5.

Naaman was the captain of the Syrian army, and he contracted leprosy. And so he asked the prophet Elisha what he should do. And word came back from Elisha exactly what he needed to do to be healed from the leprosy. Look at 2 Kings 5, verse 10. Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean. Verse 11, but Naaman was furious when he heard that instruction.

Now, why was he so mad at that instruction? If you've ever been to the Jordan River, you understand why. This idea of washing in the Jordan, verse 10, that's an oxymoron. Nobody washes in the Jordan.

It is a filthy mud hole. Naaman was told to do something he didn't want to do, but he heard enough that he was willing finally to obey. Verse 14, so Naaman went down, and he dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God. And his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

Can't you just see it? And he said, okay. Goes down, and the water comes back up. Don't you know he immediately checked to see if the leprosy was still there?

Still there. He goes down the second time, the third time, the fourth time. Had he stopped and said, I need to go to a faith healer or somebody else.

This isn't working. He would have missed the blessing, but he went down the fifth, the sixth time. But it was after that seventh time of coming up out of the water that he saw the leprosy was gone. That's what perseverance is, continuing in spite of the obstacles. What have we seen about perseverance so far? First of all, we ought to only persist in the God-given goals for our life. Secondly, persistence doesn't necessarily mean overcoming obstacles. It means continuing in spite of obstacles. And finally, persistence sometimes requires that we continue in activities that don't seem to make any sense. Remember Joshua and Naaman?

Now, you say, I agree with you. I need to be more persistent in my life, but how do I develop that quality of perseverance? Let me close today with four practical insights about developing perseverance that I think will be a great encouragement to you. First of all, understand the value of perseverance. Understand the value of perseverance.

You know, you may be one of these people. Deep down, you think you could never be successful because you're not as gifted as other people you know. Many people feel inferior about their gifts and abilities, thinking that successful people are just inherently more gifted than they are.

That is just not true. In fact, I read a book one time by Dr. David Westler called The Range of Human Capacities, in which his basic thesis is there's not that much difference in people. He says, quote, the differences that separate the masses of mankind from one another with respect to any or all of their capabilities are small. As compared with other ratios or orders or differences in nature, they are pitifully insignificant.

There's not that much difference in people. Napoleon Hill made the same observation in the last century. He studied people's success, and he spent years studying the two most successful men of his age, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, and listened to his conclusion of why they were such successes. He said, I had the privileges of analyzing both Mr. Edison and Mr. Ford year by year over a long period of years, and therefore the opportunity to study them at close range, so I speak from actual knowledge when I say that I found no quality except persistence in either one of them that even remotely suggested the major source of their stupendous achievements. Some of my favorite words about the value of perseverance come from President Calvin Coolidge.

Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not.

Nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not.

The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are overwhelmingly powerful. Understand the value of perseverance. Secondly, anticipate obstacles in achieving your goals. Some obstacles between you and your goal can be anticipated and they can be removed very simply. For example, maybe you would say, you know, I want to get in better shape, so I'm going to start running 30 minutes a day, five days a week. The obstacle you face is you don't have a good pair of running shoes, so you can eliminate that obstacle.

You put on your to-do list, go to the store and buy running shoes. Or maybe you have a spiritual goal. You want to share your faith with one person a week. Whatever you do, you're going to share the gospel with somebody. The obstacle is you don't know how to share the gospel with anybody.

So you can alleviate that. You go to discipleship university, find the evangelism course and sign up for the next 12 weeks and learn how to share your faith. But again, some obstacles cannot be overcome. I think about the Apostle Paul. Remember his vision, his dream, his purpose was to be a light to the Gentiles, to be a missionary to the Gentiles. But Paul had some obstacles in doing that, most of which were unremovable. His first obstacle was he was a Jew. He couldn't change that. That was his heritage. Jews influencing Gentiles didn't happen that much. Secondly, and I don't know how to say this delicately, he was ugly.

Did you know that? Did you know the Apostle Paul was nothing to look at? In fact, we have in an apocryphal book, the Acts of Paul and Thelka, this description of Paul, quote, He was a man of little stature, thin-haired upon the head, crooked in the legs, with eyebrows joining and a nose somewhat hooked.

Not exactly the kind of guy you would want to watch on television, but some of you are treating it on Pathway to Victory right now, so I guess that's okay. Third, Paul was a terrible communicator. We think he's this great writer and great communicator, neither of which was true. Listen to what Paul said about his own writing and his own appearances. He repeats what other people were saying about him in 2 Corinthians 10. They say his, talking about Paul, his letters are weighty and strong. Peter said you can't even make sense of some of his writing.

His letters are weighty and strong, but his personal presence is unimpressive, and his speech is contemptible. That's an obstacle if you're trying to be a communicator of God's Word. But his fourth obstacle was one he couldn't do anything about, as much as he tried. 2 Corinthians 12, verses 8 and 9 said he had a thorn in the flesh. We don't know what it was, whether it was a physical thorn, an emotional one, but there was something in his life that hindered his ministry.

And three different times he prayed for God to remove that thorn in the flesh from him, and each time God said no, no, no, my grace is sufficient for you. What I want you to see is obstacles sometimes can be removed, many times they can't be. But when those unmovable obstacles come into our life, we have one or two choices.

We can either just give up, or like Paul, we can view those problems as brilliantly disguised opportunities to trust in God. Thirdly, realize failure is not final. Failure is not final. We live in a culture that says if at first you don't succeed, give up.

No. Failure isn't final, and somebody sent me this after the first service, and it's not fatal either. You know, one reason most of us don't venture out and start pursuing our God-given dreams in life, we are paralyzed by the fear of failure. We think, what if I apply for this job and I don't get it? What if I ask that person out on a date and they don't say yes?

What if I do this and it doesn't work? People are paralyzed by failure. Remember this, nobody stubbed his toe standing still.

I mean, if you're moving forward, you are going to stub your toe from time to time, but you're also going to move forward. I mean, I think of Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM. He said the way to succeed is to double your failure rate. What does he mean by that, double your failure rate? He was saying the more times you try something, the more ventures you pursue, yes, the more times you're going to fail, but you're also going to succeed more as well. You have to fail if you're going to succeed. George Bernard Shaw, a great novelist, had his first five novels rejected. Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times, but he's considered one of America's greatest baseball players. Thomas Edison discovered 1,800 ways not to make a light bulb.

But all of those men were tremendous successes. By the way, is that attitude a biblical one? You better believe it. Remember what Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 11, verse 1? Solomon said, cast your bread on the surface of the waters, for you will find it after many days. Cast your bread upon the waters, what is that talking about? Getting a loaf of Mrs. Baird's bread and going down to the Trinity River and picking off portions of it and throwing it?

No, that's not what he's talking about. In Solomon's day, casting your bread upon the waters, it was a reference to a king sending out ships. A king would many times send out empty ships to foreign lands with the hopes of bringing back treasure. Some of the boats came back empty, no success.

Some came back full of gold and silver and precious stones. The point is, the more ships you sent out, the more likely you were to have ships that came back with treasure. And that's where we get our expression, sending out your ship or waiting for your ship to come in.

That's where that expression comes out. The more ships you send out, the more that will come back with treasure. Motivational speaker Charlie Tremendous Jones said, a lot of people are waiting for their ship to come in even though they never sent one out. Or they only sent one out.

Guess what? The more resumes you send out, yeah, the more rejections you'll get, but the more likely you'll get a bite on it. The more doors you knock on, the more people you share your faith with, yeah, the more rejections you're going to have, not of you, but of Christ, but the more opportunities to lead people to Christ.

That's why it is important that we understand that failure is not final. Years ago, I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Kenneth Taylor. He's in heaven now. But Dr. Taylor, many of you know, was the compiler, the paraphraser of the Living Bible. And Dr. Taylor told me the story of how he came to produce the Living Bible. He had been a businessman in Chicago, and like so many people in Chicago, he had to take a commuter train to work, and so instead of wasting that time, he had a King James Bible, and he would take a section of the New Testament, and he would write it in his own words so he could read it to his children during their devotionals at night. And his children so enjoyed hearing the Bible in a way that they could understand it, Dr. Taylor continued to do that for the whole New Testament, and he thought, you know, if my children enjoyed this so much, perhaps there are other children, perhaps other adults who would like to be able to understand the Bible. So he completed the entire New Testament. He took it to a Christian publisher to share the idea with them. They said, are you out of your mind?

Of course we're not going to do that. Touching God's holy Word, paraphrasing it, nobody would want to do that. So he went to a second publisher, a third one.

He got six rejections. He could have given up. He could have said it's a bad idea, but he believed this idea was from God, so he and his wife used their life savings to publish a paperback edition of some of the letters from Paul. It was called The Living Letters is what they called it, and they published it in paperback edition.

At first, nobody wanted it, but soon demand began to pick up, and they published more of those volumes until finally they put the whole Bible together, a publisher picked it up, and it has sold hundreds of millions of copies today. But more importantly, people all over the world had been introduced to the Word of God and to faith in Jesus Christ because of one man and his wife who refused to allow failure to be final. That's what perseverance is, continuing in spite of the obstacles that come in your way.

Finally, to develop perseverance in your life, expect to work hard. One writer calls it, you have to develop a good case of holy sweat. You know, again, we don't want to hear that. We want to think. We try to disguise our laziness with theology. Oh, well, you know, if it's meant to be, it's up to God.

You know, he's got to do it. It won't require any effort from me. Listen to the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 9. Therefore, I run in such a way as not without aim. I box in such a way as not beating the air, but I buffet my body and I make it my slave, lest possibly after I've preached to others, I should be disqualified. Paul is talking about hard work.

Dennis Whately in his book, Seeds of Greatness, says, winners work at doing things the majority of the population are not willing to do. Do you desire to achieve your God-given purpose in life? Expect to work hard. And don't be discouraged when other people seem to be making progress and you seem to be standing still. I think of the words of Amy Carmichael, that great Christian writer. Words that have been an encouragement to me at certain times in my life, perhaps you'll find encouraging as well. She says, sometimes when we read the words of those who have been more than conquerors, we feel almost despondent.

I feel that I shall never be like that, we think. But these people won through step by step by little bits of wills, little denials of self, little inward victories, by faithfulness in very little things. They became what they are. No one sees these little hidden steps. They only see the accomplishment. But even so, those small steps were taken.

Now listen to this. There is no sudden triumph, no sudden spiritual maturity that is the work of the moment. Perseverance, moving forward in spite of obstacles, is the attitude that will lead to the fulfillment of your God-given dreams in life. Sometimes our daily chores make us feel like a slave to our responsibilities and never more so than when surprises come our way.

Let me ask you, are you tired of the rat race? Do you feel like your days are becoming more like a slog than a celebration? Well, the solution starts with your attitude. It's a simple choice to shift your perspective from victim to victor.

Isn't it time to let your challenges work for you rather than against you? Let me come alongside you and show you 11 practical ways to win the battle. Please get in touch with us today and request your copy of my extremely practical book, Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life. The principles you'll learn in this book are the same ones that I'm practicing too, when I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders, about my family, my church, and our world in general.

These biblical solutions work, and I'm thrilled to share them with you. I'll be pleased to send you a copy today of when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. In closing, let me assure you that your generous support is deeply needed and appreciated right now. Families across our country desperately need direction, and our nation is polarized and needs the guiding light of God's Word. So thank you for your generous gift. When you give today, you will be used by Christ to change lives.

David? Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. When you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, we'll send you a copy of the book titled, Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life. It's written to help you live out the principles we're learning in this study. Give a gift and request the book when you call 866-999-2965 or online, go to ptv.org. And when you give $75 or more, you'll receive the book, as well as our current teaching series called, Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life, on both CD and DVD.

Plus, you're going to get the group or individual study guide. Again, call 866-999-2965 or online, go to ptv.org. You could write to us if you'd like, P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. That's P.O.

Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. You know, few things wreak havoc on the mind like the effects of worry. So, how can we release ourselves from worry's grip once and for all? I'm David J. Mullins, inviting you to join us for a message called, Choosing Faith Over Worry. That's Thursday on Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. The Pathway to Victory Journeys of Paul Mediterranean Cruise sets sail from Rome May 5th through 16th, 2025. Join me on this trip of a lifetime.

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