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? Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I’m David Pick, and Colin, maybe there’s someone listening today who gets a bit of a lightbulb moment because they’re wondering, has my faith actually left me? Yeah, you know, it’s always important to remember when we talk about faith, there are kind of two sides to that. On the one hand, believing certain things to be true. That’s part of what faith is. I believe that Jesus died. I believe that he rose again. I believe these things. Then there’s this matter of trusting. Because I believe these things, I can look to this Christ and I can rely on him. I can put weight on him, as it were, as I’m facing these difficulties. Now, the problem comes when we have the idea of just having a faith as if that were some kind of thing that automatically works. No, there is an application of trusting Jesus Christ in particular situations on the basis of what I have believed to be true, which is who he is and what he’s done for me and all that is mine in him. And that’s exactly what’s in today’s message. So if you can, join us in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 and the first four verses as we continue our message, God is working through you. Here’s Colin. 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. 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 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. So, let’s get specific. Let me give you a couple of specific examples as to how this might work for you. Let’s say that you’re praying for an unbelieving loved one. Now, many of us will have been praying here. We’re in a new year again and you’ve been praying for an unbelieving loved one for 20 years, 30 years, some of us 40 years. And you get tired of that, don’t you? Praying, praying, praying for the same person, not a thing has changed in all these years. And it’s not easy to persevere in praying for this person. You get discouraged. Well, you can say to the Lord, Lord, another year helped me to persevere in praying for him. But a better way to pray would be this, Lord, increase my faith in what you are able to do in his or her life. Because the very fact that I’m struggling to keep praying means that I’m beginning to lose sight of what God is able to do. My faith is fatigued in this matter. I need it to be renewed. And then another great thing to pray when you’re discouraged in interceding for a loved one who is not yet showing faith in Christ, pray that God will increase your love for that person. Because when you’re tiring in praying for someone who’s been resistant to the gospel for years and years and years, if you look under the surface of that tiredness, I guarantee you’ll find some frustration with the person themselves. See, that’s strategic praying. It’s going to the root of the problem. How am I going to persevere in prayer? By being refreshed in love for this person for whom I pray and renewed in faith in God’s ability to do great things beyond what I ask or even what I think in his or her life. That will give you fresh wind in your praying, you see. Let me take another example, same principle. Suppose you’re caring for young children. Or suppose you are caring for a needy older person and there are great demands involved in this and they are constant. And you find that you are getting short-tempered and impatient and you’re snapping. And you see this in yourself and you don’t like it and you want to change and you say, I really must pray about this. I don’t want to be like that with them. Now, how are you going to pray? You can say, well, dear Lord, I really ask you to help me be more patient with the children. That’s fine. But when you know that patience is the fruit of faith and love, a better way for you to pray would be for you to ask the Lord to renew your love for these children or for this older person and to increase your faith in what he can make of their lives, what he can do. One more example. Suppose you’re battling again with the same old sin and here you are, it’s a new year and you’ve failed already. You’re discouraged by your many failures and you’re tired of the battle. You say, well, this has been like this for years and years. You could ask the Lord to give you perseverance. That’s fine. But a better way to pray would be to say, Lord, what I need to see right now is your power to overcome this evil in my life. Because if your faith has become fatigued and you no longer really believe that God can do this in you, then you’re not going to pray very well. Lord, give me a glimpse of what you are able to do in this regard in me and help me to believe that. And then, Lord, help me to love you more than I love this sin. Because you see, at the point of sinning what’s happening is that you love what you’re doing more than you love Christ and you’ll gain victory over it as you come to love the Lord Jesus Christ more. So, this is strategic praying, folks. This is striking at the root of the problem. As your faith grows and your love for Christ increases, you will persevere in your battle against sin. You will grow in patience because that is the inevitable fruit that comes from these roots that nourish perseverance. And it is God who causes faith to grow and it is God who causes love to grow. That’s why Paul thanks God for it when he sees it. And therefore you can ask him for it and you can ask him to do that in you in relation to the particular battle in which you are finding yourself tired at the beginning of this new year. We’re going to pause the message briefly there and if you joined us late or if you have to leave early, you can always catch up or go back and listen again to any of our messages that have been already broadcast on our website. That’s 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. Our message today is from two Thessalonians and the first four verses and it’s called God is working through you. Back to the message now, here’s Colin. Now more briefly some other uses because this has multiple, multiple applications. First was use it to improve your praying. Learn to pray strategically. Go for the root, not the surface problem. Here’s the second. Use this to sustain your usefulness. You know there’s a lot of people who make beginnings at things but don’t manage to endure. And if you talk to people who have sustained ministry over many years, you will find invariably these two things are true. Talk to someone who’s led a Sunday school class for 20 years. Talk to someone who’s been involved in a difficult ministry in the inner city for 40 years. You will find these things are true. That they love the people that they serve and they have great confidence in what God is able to do in these people’s lives. And that should not surprise you because it’s simply an application of what we’re learning, that perseverance is nourished by the roots of faith and of love. I always look back with great thankfulness to the counsel of a wise pastor when I was 22 years old and beginning in ministry myself and I said to this senior friend, tell me what’s your best advice with regards doing this for the long haul? And he said to me, ask God to give you a large heart full of love for the people you serve. And then ask God to give you a quiet confidence in what he is able to do among them. That was brilliant, brilliant counsel. And it comes directly from the scripture. He understood that all perseverance is nourished by the roots of faith and of love and that to sustain a lifetime of ministry would flow from this. A large heart full of love for the people you serve and a quiet confidence in what God is able to do in their lives. It’s very important to understand how ministry is sustained. Great gifts never sustain a ministry, never. See, gifted people can be like rockets going up on the 4th of July. You know, a lot of noise and a lot of explosive light and then the whole thing fizzles out after a very short time. You know, people who, you know, they suddenly come on the scene and then they’re off the scene and they’ve fizzled out. You know this from 1 Corinthians 13. Faith and love will never fizzle out. Talking about gifts, Paul says, where there are prophecies, what will happen? They will cease. Where there are tongues, they will be stilled. Where there is knowledge, it will pass away. You can’t sustain ministry just by being brilliant. But these three things remain. Help me, faith, hope, and love. See, now the word that’s key there is remain. You see, that’s the perseverance piece. These are the things that last. Endurance, patience, that’s where it comes from. Not great gifts, but a love for those who serve. And being constantly renewed in that love for those who serve. And a quiet confidence in what God is able to do in the lives of these people. That’s how you’ll keep teaching a group of kids for 20 years. That’s how you’ll sustain anything that God is calling you to do in the long haul. The refreshing and the renewing and the increasing of faith and the replenishing of love that is the gift of God. See why Paul was praying for these things? Use it to improve your praying. Use this to sustain your usefulness. Here’s one I just throw in briefly. John Stott has a very helpful observation here. Use this to encourage others is the third use. He raises the question, how can you encourage a person who’s doing well without spoiling them through flattery? I think that’s a great question. Someone’s doing well in the, one of your children are doing well. And how do you affirm their progress without it going to their heads, you see? If you simply tell people how marvelous they are all the time, you may tempt them to pride. But then if we don’t say anything that encourages other people, then we will leave them very discouraged indeed. So what do you do with a person who’s doing well? How do you do this in the family with your kids? How do we do this in the fellowship as we are trying to encourage one another? Well, John Stott says that Paul shows us how to affirm a person without spoiling them. He thanks God for the Thessalonians and then he tells the Thessalonians that he’s thanking God. That’s great. I thank God for you. See, the thing isn’t, hey, you guys, you’re growing in faith and you’re growing in love. Let’s have a round of applause for all you guys. You see, that’s flattery. But Paul would say, I see you growing in faith. I see you growing in love and I thank God for it. I see what God is doing in your life. And John Stott says so helpfully, if we follow this example, we will avoid both congratulation that corrupts and silence that discourages. This way of encouraging, it affirms without flattering and it encourages without puffing up. That’s a great way to encourage others. So use it to improve your praying. Use it to sustain ministry. Use it to encourage others. And here’s the very last thing. Use it to leverage your trials. Use it to leverage your trials. Someone in the congregation kindly sent me this week a piece by Archibald Alexander, another of these old guys who writes at a very rich level. Born in 1772, it was the best thing that I’d read outside of the scriptures in all of this week. And Archibald Alexander, he was a pastor for 20 years, the East Coast, and then became the first ever professor at Princeton Theological Seminary where he taught for 40 years. He was in fact initially the only professor there when that great institution was founded. And he wrote a piece called Growth in Grace, and you can find it on Google if you want to read it, in which he gives practical directions for how to grow in the Christian life. And as so often with these folks from earlier centuries, the level of perception, it seems to me, was profoundly helpful. So let me quote to you from what he says. For your more rapid growth in grace, some of you will be cast into a furnace of affliction. That’s one of the reasons I like these guys. They just say it as it is, you know. None of this messing about. Just get to the point, you know. Here we are, we’re at the beginning of the new year, and in so many of our hearts we’re saying, oh I want to grow in grace. And Archibald Alexander says, well for your more rapid growth in grace, some of you will be cast into the furnace of affliction. Now he gives some examples as to what he’s talking about. Sickness, he says, I would have thought of that. Bereavement, I would have thought of that. Number three in his list, bad conduct from children and relatives. I would not have put that as number three on my list, would you? Have you ever thought that God may advance your growth in grace more rapidly by bad conduct from your children? But he’s saying it’s through afflictions and through difficulties that you’re struggling with that faith grows and love increases and perseverance endures. Then he says it may come through loss of property. We’d have to include in that financial loss. Or maybe for your more rapid growth in grace, he says, that affliction. Or it may be even the loss of reputation that may come upon you unexpectedly and press heavily on you. Now he says, in these trying circumstances, exercise patience and fortitude. And then this line that I really loved. Be more eager to have the affliction sanctified than to have it removed. In other words, be more concerned that this trouble should be a means of God advancing his work in your life, as it was with the Thessalonians, than that simply you should get out of the problem and have it removed. Think about this. Have you ever really thought, seriously, that a difficult marriage could be the very thing that most quickly advances your growth in the likeness of Christ? A rebellious children, in which you’re cast on the Lord and you find that somehow he works in your life in a new way? Or sickness, or a financial loss that somehow you’re cast on him and this is sanctified. It’s used for your growth in the Christian life. And that proved for eternity to be far more important than that it was quickly removed. God will use the hardest things in your life to make you more like Jesus Christ. He will use the trials of your life as the setting in which he will place the gems of his grace in your experience. So don’t waste your suffering. Be more eager to have your affliction sanctified than to have it removed. This thing that is wearying you, it may be precisely the point at which God’s most significant work is being done in your life. And if you can see that, you will leverage this trial and it will be for your great and for your eternal good. And then Alexander says this very last thing, and learn, he says from Christ, how you ought to suffer. How was it that Jesus endured all that he suffered? And the answer was, he did it by faith and he did it by love. When they hurled insults at him, Peter says, he did not retaliate and when he suffered, he made no threats. But Jesus, how do you do that? How do you suffer without threatening? How, when you’re insulted, do you not retaliate? Peter says, here’s how he did it. He trusted himself to the one who judges justly. He exercised faith in the sovereign outcome that the Father would bring from all his suffering. Faith. Surrounded by darkness, but he puts his trust in the ultimate triumph of God. That’s how he endured. And he endured through love. How could he have stayed on that cross? All these people saying, come down from the cross, come down from the cross. And he stays there. How can he stay there? Greater love has no one than this, than that a man lay down his life for his friends. Was it the nails, O Saviour, that bound you to the tree? No. It was your love, your everlasting love, your love for me. Even me. That’s how he endured. Christ persevered through faith and he endured through love. And what the Apostle Paul is saying is this. When I see you enduring great trials because your faith is growing and because your love is increasing, I see in you a reflection of Jesus Christ, for which I lift my heart in thanksgiving to God. broadcast messages on our website, openthebible.org.uk. You can also find them as podcasts on your favourite podcast site. Search for Open the Bible UK. Subscribe for regular updates. You can also find Open the Bible daily. This is a series of short two to three minute reflections, a new one every day, written by Pastor Colin Smith and read in the UK by Sue MacLeish. Open the Bible is supported by our listeners. That’s people just like you. If you’re able to set up a donation in the amount of £5 per month or more, we’d love to thank you by sending you a free gift. It’s two copies of a book called More Than a Carpenter, written by Josh McDowell. Colin, why is this book so important? Well, I’m always drawn to books that are tried and tested. And God has used this book, More Than a Carpenter, for more than 40 years. And it has been a means of God’s work in many, many people’s lives. But I think it’s perhaps a book that many today are not aware of. And so I’m just delighted that we’re making it available. More Than a Carpenter deals with real questions that a sceptic might have in regards to the Christian faith. So Josh McDowell deals with questions like what about science and what about the new atheism and how do we know that the Bible is reliable? So this is a really helpful book for believers to help us be clearer and more confident in our witness to Jesus. And it’s also a marvellous book to give to anyone who’s asking honest questions about the Christian faith. And that’s why we’d like to send you two copies, one for you and one to give away. In return for setting up a new donation to the work of Open the Bible for £5 per month or more. Details on our website openthebible.org.uk. For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick and I hope you’ll be able to join us again soon. The most obvious question for Christians who are suffering under persecution is where is God in this? Discover the Bible’s answer next time on Open the Bible.