How do I get more patience with a person who is really troubling me? How do I gain stability and endurance in my life, and how do I go after that kind of character? How do I become the kind of person who goes the distance in the Christian life, in this hostile world, and not one who simply fizzles out as so many do? Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I’m David Pick, and Colin, that is a huge question. How do I maintain my passion for Christ, because life does get overwhelming? Yeah, it absolutely does, and I think every Christian knows what it is at some point to say, I am just so tired of the battle. I’ve been fighting this thing, I’ve been struggling with this issue, perhaps in the home, family, the workplace. I’ve been praying this prayer, I’ve been serving, I’m not seeing any progress, and I just feel absolutely worn down. And you know, it was a real eye-opener for me to discover that there’s a whole letter in the New Testament that’s exactly written to this issue. It’s the second letter of Thessalonians, and the reason it’s written to this issue is that the folks in that church had nothing but difficulty and trouble from the time they were converted on and on and on. And in the second letter of Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul particularly writes to help and encourage perseverance, continuing, sustaining the race to folks who are really tired of the battle. And that’s the theme of the letter. I have found it so replenishing in my own life, and I’m praying that that’s what’s going to happen in our lives as we open the Bible today. Well, I think you’re talking to a lot of people. If we ask for a show of hands, who would say, yes, I’m worn out, I’m overwhelmed, I’m exhausted, I need this. If that’s you, I hope you’ll stay tuned and open your Bible to 2 Thessalonians, the first four verses, as we begin the message, God is working through you. Here’s Colin. Now, please turn in your Bible to the book of 2 Thessalonians, three short chapters, and they are full of encouragement. That’s the great thing about this particular letter, and that’s why I’ve chosen the title for this series, Staying the Course When You’re Tired of the Battle. That is what this letter is all about. It is full of encouragement. Just by way of quick background, the church in this town of Thessalonica, where these believers were, it was born in great difficulties. You can read the story, if you’d like to, in Acts and chapter 17. It boils down to this, that Paul spent three weeks there proclaiming that Jesus is the Christ. Many people came to faith in Jesus through his ministry, but as soon as that happened, there was opposition. There were some bad characters, Luke says, in the Acts, who rounded up a mob in the marketplace and started a riot in Thessalonica over these people turning to Christ. They came to the house of a man called Jason, who was giving hospitality to Paul. They were looking for Paul to arrest him. Jason had hidden the apostle Paul, and so Jason himself ends up under arrest and then in trial. Paul is banned by the authorities from the town, has to be shepherded out of the town at night by the believers, and so he leaves this young church, forced away from them, not knowing if he will ever in person be able to see them again. So he goes on to Corinth, and a few months later writes a letter to this group of believers that we know as First Thessalonians, and then a few months after that, after Timothy had visited this group and brought back a great report about them, Paul writes this second letter of Thessalonians, which we’re going to focus on over these next weeks. Now, most people are able to stand up under trouble for a while, but when problems just keep coming, eventually they can wear you down. And that’s how it was with these new believers. If you look back to the first letter, just for a moment, chapter 1 and verse 6, Paul says that you welcomed us in spite of severe suffering. So right from the beginning, when Paul was first welcomed, the suffering began. Then chapter 2 and verse 14 of the first letter, you suffered from your own countrymen, he says. Then chapter 3 and verse 4, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted, and it turned out that way, as you yourselves well know. So this had been the case from the beginning. Now months later, it’s still the same. And in the second letter, chapter 1 and verse 4, which was read to us, Paul says, among God’s churches, we’re boasting about your perseverance and your faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring. Notice the present tense. So it’s still going on after all this time. And you can understand that these believers who are doing well under this pressure are at the place where they’re saying, well, now how long is this going to go on? And that’s no doubt a question that you have asked in your own life, as I have in mine, when we become weary in the battle. So this letter then is written to encourage these believers, young Christians, to stay the course. And I think a key verse for this letter is chapter 3 and verse 13, where Paul says, never tire of doing what is right. So big picture, this letter is all about how Christ enables His people to persevere. We’re going to learn how Christ will sustain you in what you’re facing, how Christ will enable you to persevere in the battles that sometimes seem very wearying. Now that’s by way of introduction to the letter. Let’s now try and connect our own experience to this letter. Let me ask you this question, what is the battle in your life that is making you weary right now? Now you see, it may be for some of us in the family, maybe you’re struggling to hold a marriage together, you’ve been doing that for a while and the longer it goes on the harder it seems to get. Or you’re dealing with a rebellious son or daughter or a difficult relative or whatever, and you’ve been doing this for some time, but this person is being a pain in your life and it’s not easy for you to keep going. It may be that God has placed you in a working environment that is very hostile towards your Christian faith. You find when you go to work that you’re in a place where everything is affirmed except faith in Christ and except the pursuit of a godly life, and you feel very lonely as a Christian. There are not many others who think like you do or live like you do, and over time it just wears you down. Or maybe for you it’s the battle with temptation, a particular temptation, and you think you’re making progress, and then you find you fall again, and it just goes on and on and on. You’re tired of that battle. Or maybe it is in relation to sustaining ministry. Some who are listening to this message right now, God has placed you in a position where it’s really tough to serve Him, and you’ve been doing it for some time, but the pressures are great, and so you say, well now I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this. How much more can I take? Well, my point is very simple. You can add to the list. Everyone has their battles to face, and there will be times when you get tired in your battle. And that’s what this series is all about. It’s about perseverance. It’s about how you can stay the course when you are tired of the battle. So I hope you have the Bible open in front of you, and we’ll begin at verse four. And you notice there that Paul speaks about, among God’s churches, he says we boast about your perseverance. You are persevering, he says, and we’re thanking God for this, and we even talk to people in other churches about it. We encourage them by telling your story. By the way, your persevering under difficulties will bring more encouragement to other people who see you stand than you may ever know in your life in this world. We boast among the other churches about your perseverance. Now, if you have the New International Version, you have the Pew Bible, you’ll see the word perseverance there. If you have the King James Bible, the authorized version, you will have the word patience in there. If you have the English Standard Version, you will have the word steadfastness in there. And if you have the New Living Translation, you will have the word endurance in this verse. All of these are good translations. And I give them to you just to get the range of what Paul is talking about. He’s talking about perseverance, he’s talking about patience, he’s talking about steadfastness, he’s talking about endurance. Look at these four words and you say, how do I get that? That’s what I need. That’s exactly what I need. How do I get more patience with a person who is really troubling me? How do I get perseverance and build it into my ministry? How do I gain stability and endurance in my life, and how do I go after that kind of character? How do I become the kind of person who goes the distance in the Christian life, in this hostile world, and not one who simply fizzles out as so many do? What produces this character? Now folks, this is a one-point sermon, though it has a number of applications. And I’ll just give you the point and then we’ll see it in the Bible, because I want us to get one thing from the Scriptures clearly. Here it comes. The big thing I want us to learn from the Bible today is that perseverance is the fruit of growing in faith and growing in love. That’s the point. Perseverance is the fruit of growing in faith and growing in love. So if you grow in faith, you grow in love, what you get is perseverance. That’s how you get perseverance. That’s how patience grows. And that, as we’ll see in a few moments, is what Paul is saying exactly here. Now look at it in your own Bible, in verse 3. We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more. Remember in Scripture there are degrees of faith. Jesus says to Peter, O you of little faith. He says about us in Turin, I’ve not seen in Israel anyone with such great faith. Disciples say to Jesus, Lord, increase our faith. When they’re in the boat and they begin to panic because of a storm, Jesus says, where is your faith? He’s not saying you haven’t got it, he’s saying you aren’t using it. Apply your faith. Exercise it. Now what about you? You have faith if you’re a Christian, but are you exercising faith by trusting God in the particular battle in which you find yourself weary? And with that question, we’re going to pause for just a moment. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith in a series called Staying the Course When You’re Tired of the Battle. And this message is called God is Working Through You. If you ever miss one of our messages, don’t forget you can always go online to openthebible.org.uk. There you can download or listen again to any of our previously broadcast messages. You can also find our messages as podcasts. Go to your favorite podcast site, search for Open the Bible UK, and subscribe to the podcast to receive regular updates. Back to the message now, here’s Colin. What about you? You have faith if you’re a Christian, but are you exercising faith by trusting God in the particular battle in which you find yourself weary? For faith is confidence in the ultimate triumph of God, and what I need when I’m struggling with difficult relationships or stubborn sins or difficulties in ministry or the hostility of an unbelieving world, what we need is that confidence, that faith in the ultimate triumph of God. Now, Paul says that’s what’s happening in you. You’ve got that. Your faith is growing. Then he says, verse three, your love is increasing. The love every one of you has for each other is increasing. Now again, there are degrees of love. Help me with this. The Lord Jesus said, he who has been forgiven little loves little. Hey, do you know this verse? Does anyone know this verse? The one who has been forgiven little loves little. The one who has been forgiven much loves much. You see, there are degrees of love, and he says you can grow in love. By the way, that’s Luke chapter seven and verse 47 for all who didn’t know it straight away. There you go. Your faith is increasing. Your love is growing. Now, here’s what he says. This is evidence that God is at work in your life. This is a marvelous thing. Here are these young believers. They’ve made a decision to follow Christ, but thank God their faith is more than a decision. If your faith was only a decision to follow Jesus, then when it got tough, you would have changed your mind a long time ago, right? You would have made a different decision. So what is it that sustains you? Well, the life of God that produces faith within you and produces love within you. This is the work of God within you. It’s the very thing for which Paul has been praying. If you check back in chapter three of the first letter, some months earlier, Paul says in chapter three and verse 10, he says, night after night, we are earnestly praying. And he says we’re praying that God will make up what is lacking in your faith. So praying for their faith to grow. And then once in Thessalonians 3.12, he says, may the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other. So he’s praying for their love to grow. Then he sends Timothy. Timothy, go and find out how it is with these guys. They’re enduring such pressure. And Timothy comes back to Paul and Corinth, and he gives this wonderful report. And he says, Paul, they’re still facing the same pressure, but here’s the good news. Their faith is growing and their love is increasing. And Paul must have said, that’s exactly what I’ve been praying for. Praise God. That is an answer to prayer. Only God can do these things. And now he writes this letter under the inspiration of the Spirit. And he says, oh, I’m thanking God that though you are still facing all of these difficulties, your faith is growing and your love is increasing. This is irrefutable evidence of God’s work in your life. You truly have the life of God in you. Now, I want you to notice where he goes next. Look at verse four. Your faith is growing. Your love is increasing. Therefore, he says, we boast about your perseverance. Now the word therefore makes the connection here. There’s a connection between their growing in faith and their growing in love and their persevering. How do you get perseverance? Well, here it is. Perseverance is the fruit of growing in faith and in love. Calvin who uses the word patience rather than perseverance in his commentary, as the King James Version does, he says, patience is the fruit and evidence of faith. And so he says these words in verse four ought therefore to be explained in this manner, that Paul glories in the patience which springs from faith. So here’s the point. As you grow in faith and love, you will have patience to endure. You say, oh, I need more patience. Here’s how you get it. As faith grows and as love grows, patience increases from these roots. Now, this is the teaching of all of the Bible. You remember James in chapter one where James writes these words. It’s the trial of your faith that develops perseverance. Where does perseverance come from? Your faith is tested, your faith becomes stronger, and that’s what produces perseverance. And the same is true of love. In the best-known chapter of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, love is patient. Love is patient. Love is patient. So do you need more patience? Get more love because love is patient. As love increases, guess what increases with it? Patience. Love is patient. And then Paul says in the same chapter, his four marvelous statements. Help me with this one. See if we can get there a little quicker on this one. He says four things about love that it always does. Love always protects. It always trusts. It always hopes. And what’s the last one? It always perseveres. Always perseveres. See, it’s in its nature. It always perseveres. That’s why increasing love is the root or the fountain of patience or of perseverance. So here is the doctrine or the great truth, the single point that I want us to grasp here, that Christ causes his people to persevere by growing their faith and by increasing their love. That’s how it works. Working on this message, I came through and talked to my wife. She said, you need an illustration. She’s absolutely right. I’m scratching my head, walking around the house, looking for an illustration. And there it was right in front of me in our living room. The Christmas tree. You know, here we are now into the first week of January. And like many of you, we’ll be taking down the Christmas tree. And we have a cut tree this year in our living room, as I’m sure many of you do. And you know what the deal is like once you get into January with one of these things. Yeah, the needles start falling off. And the tree that you brought home on the roof of your van begins to dry out. The color begins to fade. This tree has looked beautiful for a while, but it will not be evergreen because it has no root. There was life in the tree when you brought it home. Some life in the tree when you brought it home on the top of your van. But here’s the point. That life could not be sustained. That’s the point. Perseverance, you see. It couldn’t be sustained. Why? Because there is no root. Now, faith and love are the roots that feed, nourish, sustain perseverance, patience, steadfastness, stability, endurance are nourished by the deep roots of faith and love. Faith and love. Now, that’s the teaching of these verses. Now, let’s get to the application. Use this truth first to improve your praying. To improve your praying. Think about this. A wise counselor will address the issues underneath the problem. You know, if you’re having too many fights in your marriage, you see, and you go to a counselor and you say, hey, we’re fighting all the time in our marriage, well, if the guy just says to you, well, stop fighting in your marriage, you’re probably not going to feel you’ve got your money’s worth, right? What you expect him to do is to ask some questions and get to, well, what’s causing the fight, you see? So a wise counselor will help by looking underneath the problem that is brought to that person and giving you wisdom as to what is feeding it, so that if you address that, you’ll make some progress. Now, it’s the same with effective praying. It’s very easy for us just to pray about the surface problem, but you will improve your praying if you begin to pray in relation to the roots that are feeding the problem. So when you are worn out or you’re losing heart or you’re discouraged and you’re weary in the battle, you can come and you can say to the Lord, give me patience. Nothing wrong with that. But a better way for you to pray would be to pray regarding the roots of the problem. Because underneath all of your struggles with patience and all of your difficulties in persevering, you will find that underneath these struggles, there is a decline in faith and there is a love that is growing cold. I found this invariably in my own life. When I am struggling to keep going, what’s underneath it relates to a diminishing of faith and an erosion of love, invariably. So pray about these things, and then you will find that your perseverance, your patience increases. That’s strategic praying. So I’m saying to you, use this to improve your praying. Understand what’s going on in your soul when you are tired of the battle. Such practical help here in the message today, God is working through you. We’ll pause the message here, but we’ll come back to it in our next broadcast. It’s from our series, Staying the Course When You’re Tired of the Battle. The series is a deep dive into the letter to the Thessalonians. And don’t forget, if you ever miss one of our messages, you can always go online. Go back, catch up, or listen again. Go to openthebible.org.uk. You can also find our messages as podcasts. Go to your favourite podcast site, search for Open the Bible UK, and subscribe to receive regular updates. Also on the website and as a podcast, you’ll find Open the Bible Daily, a series of short 2-3 minute reflections written by Pastor Colin Smith and read in the UK by Sue McLeish. Open the Bible is supported entirely by our listeners, and if that’s something you feel you’d like to do, this month we’ve got a special offer for you. In return for setting up a new donation to the work of Open the Bible, in the amount of £5 per month or more, we’d love to send you two copies of a book called More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell. And Colin, who is this book for? Well, it’s for anyone who wants to bear witness to Jesus and anyone who has questions about Jesus, which ought to just about cover everyone who’s listening to the programme today, I’m sure. This is a marvellous book. More Than a Carpenter has a story behind it. And the story is that the author, Josh McDowell, actually set out to disprove Christianity. That was his aim. And what he found when he set out on that journey was that the evidence for Scripture and for the claims of Jesus Christ was so compelling that he himself was converted and became a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. So this is a great book for helping anyone who wants to be clearer and more confident in their testimony to Jesus. And it’s a marvellous book to be able to give to anyone who is a sceptic or is asking honest questions about the Christian faith. That’s why we want to send you two copies of this book, More Than a Carpenter, one for you and one to give away. That’s our gift to you if you’re able to set up a new donation to the work of Open the Bible in the amount of £5 per month or more. Full details on our website, openthebible.org.uk. For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick, and I very much hope you’ll join us again soon. How should I pray when I’m worn out, discouraged and weary of the battle? Find out next time on Open the Bible.