Inland Empire: Riverside
Never Give Up - Audio
Well, good morning, it's great to be together on our Special Missions Giving Morning. It was great. I hope you had an opportunity to give or I know many of you gave earlier in the year. We really are a part of a church that changes things worldwide. And we in particular, we sang that song "Pray for the Peace of the Middle East" because we are a church that supports mission work in the Middle East. We have, I think, 17 churches there that we help support our brothers and sisters are fighting the battle like we are to stay faithful, to preach the gospel, to love the loss, to love the hurting. And this summer we have a special opportunity where we're having our leaders of these churches coming to the Inland Empire. You guys aware of that? I've been talking about that on a regular basis. It's called the Middle East Conference. This summer, it's going to be at Cal Baptist University. Okay, ready? Everybody pay attention. How many have gone online and registered? Raise your hand. Okay, guess how much it costs, marry how much does it cost to register? It's free, but we do need everyone to register. Now you can buy a t-shirt or come to the dinner with all those church leaders and you have to pay for the dinner, but you don't want to do that and the cost is an issue. We want you to be spiritually fed, inspired, and energized to reach out to the Middle East, which is really what part of our giving here goes to in our special, as well as to work that we need to do right here in this city, certainly the statistics that Terrence read give us plenty of motivation and understanding that we need to pour our life out. I like that little video that Jake showed before we prayed for the special where it said we are plan A and there is no plan B. We are plan A, that's it. We are the hope of the world. Jesus' message, his love, his spirit, who he is, what he's done, what he provides, everything about Jesus, he intended to be conveyed through you and the love that you provide, see his spirit fills you up. We are plan A and we are to give out his love to change the world in our generation, amen? And you know, we are a part of a church that is doing it, it's awesome. Over 500 churches around the world, part of our fellowship of disciples who make disciples. We're gathering up this summer at the big world discipleship Jubilee out in San Antonio. There are 20,000 disciples from almost 100 nations at this great event. And you know, we really are a part of something special and I just want you to have a mindset of what we give and what we're a part of is crucial. And yet on this road of faith there are many obstacles, aren't there? Yesterday was that one of my son's basketball games and occasionally in sports things don't go like you hope. And one game they were down by like 24 points in the first you know, quarter, first 10 minutes. And it was a little bit discouraging, but they didn't give up, which was encouraging. They fought back and they didn't win but they would count within one point and it was a moral victory. You know, I'd rather had the actual victory, but it was a moral victory coming back from that. And it got me thinking about some of the greatest sports comebacks. There's a number of them out there. From baseball in 2010 the Northwestern University baseball team hadn't won many games, but on this one game they jumped out to a 14 to nothing lead against Michigan. Now if you're up, you know, 14 to nothing in baseball, the high likelihood you're going to win. But the Wolverines fought back and ended up scoring 15 runs and won 15 to 14. That was in 2010. And in college basketball there's been a lot of great comebacks, but one of them that's known as the Mardi Gras Miracle, the Kentucky Wildcats, engineered a huge comeback after trailing 68 to 37. So they were down by 31 points in the first half of a college basketball game. They came back in 199 to 95 at scoring another team 62 to 27 the last 15 minutes in golf. Any golfers out there today? All right, listen to this. We all know the greatest golfer of all time, Jack Nicklaus. Are you aware that he is also the owner of one of the greatest comebacks of all time in the 1986 Masters, right? The Masters, most prestigious of the major events. He's down by five strokes in golf with nine holes to go in the greatest golf tournament known. And he goes six under par in the last nine holes and wins the tournament for the sixth time, one of the greatest comebacks of all time, and he's one of the greatest golfers. He didn't give up. Hockey, any of you guys, hockey fans? The LA Kings are up 2-0, which is great. I mean, that's an underdog story there. No one really thought they're going to take it this far. But in 1982, they went up against a team called the Edmonton Oilers who were the top hockey team with Wayne Gretzky on their team, and in the one of the playoff games against that team, they were down five goals to zero going into the third period of hockey. They came back and beat that team six to five and ended up winning that particular series, though they've never won a Stanley Cup, so this is exciting for the Kings right here. This is big, all right? There wasn't much hope for the, let's go to football, okay, football, a lot of comebacks in football. In 1992, known as maybe the greatest comeback in sports history, at least in the US sports, the AFC wildcard game had the Buffalo Bills against the Houston Oilers. And of course, now it's the Houston Texans, but back then it was the Oilers. They were down 28-3 and half-time, and after the first play of half-time, they were down, another team got a touchdown. They were down 35-3, and everyone had just written them totally off. No one thought they had even a chance. And then the guy, the many of you probably don't know, named Frank Reich, he was sort of the backup quarterback for the injured, you know, starting quarterback, Jim Kelly. He led them on a comeback, and they took a 38-35 lead, went into overtime, the other teams kicked the field goal, but they ended up winning in overtime and going to the Super Bowl that year. They were down 35-3, and they won that game. What's the moral of all this? Never give up. And that is the title of today's lesson. We are to never give up. And you know, as we've been focusing in on prayer as a congregation, focusing in on really drawing close to God in our devotional life and our prayer life, this verse came to mind. And it's from Luke chapter 18. So let's turn to Luke chapter 18. My first point today is never give up in prayer, right? Never give up praying. And today, if you can walk away with one concept, is don't give up on spiritual things, don't ever give up. And Jesus himself says this very thing in Luke chapter 18. Let's begin reading in verse 1. It says, "Then Jesus told his disciples, a parable, to show them that they should always pray and not give up." He said in a certain town, there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, "Grant me justice against my adversary." For some time, he refused. But finally, he said to himself, "Even though I don't fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming." And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says, and will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice and quickly. However, when the son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" You know, sadly in life, many give up. Many give up in all kinds of endeavors because it's difficult. We quit because perseverance is hard and we like to reject things that are hard, sadly. In our nature, we want the easy way. It's one of the tests that God puts to us on earth here. He's going to test us to see if we'll have the character or build the character to do the hard things. And so we must persevere. And even in the area of praying, Jesus has to tell them a parable and tell us a parable to convince us. You must always pray and not give up. Do not give up. We cannot develop strength without some perseverance, right? You can't develop anything in life without some perseverance. You think about any area of your life, athletic training. You do not get faster, stronger, or more thin without perseverance and suffering a little bit. I've been doing a lot of push-ups, so I'm working on, you know, the P90X push-up thing. And I like that. You know, I like looking in the mirror and like, "I'm getting a little okay, I'm feeling good." But you know what I'm having trouble with? I love Oreo cookies. I love Swedish fish. I love cheeseburgers. And so I can kind of get bigger here and then I kind of get bigger here. It is not easy. I've gotten used to the pain, you know, I see the quick results, you know, you do some push-ups, you get them, you feel good, you get a little bigger. It's a guy like, "Yeah, I feel good." But it's that pain of saying no to the Oreos. You cannot make progress without some suffering. You got to say no. You have to suffer. You guys know what I'm talking about? In your finances, you cannot make progress unless you make it little by little by saying no, by working hard, saving, and investing. It's not an easy road. It's tough. I was thinking about it. It's tough to stay on budget. We just want to kind of live our life and do what we need to do and just not overdo it. It's, you know, you really want to make progress yet, you have to have a clear budget. It's to stay on budget. And I know it's a challenge. I battle with this. I've got to stay on budget. I've got to think about our findings. I've got to organize things. It's not easy. Little by little trial and difficulty makes you stronger. And God intended to test our spirituality. He says, always pray and don't give up. You have the widow in the story, right? You know, it's, it's a parable. So what's the widow? I think the widow is, you know, in that day in particular, widows are in great need. You know, they didn't have the same opportunities in that culture. And so there was a great need, a great desperation in their lives. Of course, the Lord asked that, you know, true religion today is taking care of widows and orphans. And certainly in that day, you know, absolutely. That was one of the things that demonstrated true faithfulness to God. And so the widow has a need, you know, we're like the widow because we have needs, a lot of needs. You have needs. If you've forgotten about your needs, then you're not in touch with who you are before God. We have enormous needs. Some of us just get caught up on the temporal needs, the simple physical needs that you think you have. You have deep spiritual needs. And as the widow is going to the judge, he says, the unjust judge, she's pleading for justice against her adversary. You know, we don't have, you know, we might have people that we don't like in our school. That's not the kind of adversary that God's really talking about here. The spiritual principle is we find in the scriptures in Ephesians 6 that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers of this dark age, right? All the stats that Terrence read, you know, that's coming from the spiritual forces arrayed against us. So he's, she's praying, give me justice. Well, what God intends to give you is spiritual justice. What God intends to provide is a opportunity. None of us deserve to walk with God and be with God and have the hope of heaven. So right off the bat, it's pure grace, but what God does say is that he's going to provide opportunities for people and everything that goes on, all the hardships of our life, everything going on in your life. God is involved and his goal and his plan is to get you to connect with him deeply and I fear that we as a congregation have gotten shallow. I'll tell, I'll tell you a little bit why I think it's a weird little show. I have felt it in myself as a, you know, a dad of school kids, a school-age kids and living in a nice town and we have a really nice church, we have great singing and we, you know, we have it pretty good. It's easy to get shallow. We don't really need some brand new teaching to mesmerize us in our faith. We need to get deep in the basic teaching of Jesus' who God is, what prayer can do. And I know for me, I've been feeling it. I want to be more passionate, where's your depth of passion? How did this special affect you this year? How are you feeling about special? Let's just reflect on that. You know, I've given every year for 22 years and I will continue to the day I die. And we did as best we could in the campus and the edge and we were working on stuff, we did some car washes and I kind of found, okay, we organized that, I did some stuff, I gave, I budgeted, it was all, what I do every year. But was I deeply moved to change the world? I remember my first year I got my first DVD player as a young Christian. I sold it at a garage sale. This year, I, we sold a bike that we never ride. I thought, well, we never ride it, we bought it at Mall Walmart, we got half price. I sold it, but this is when DVD players like brand new, I got this one man, I sold it at the garage sale. There's been sort of you selling wedding rings, wedding dresses, stuff that's deeply personal because they believe in the plan, in Plan A that we are, Plan A. How have you felt about it? I fear we have grown a little shallow. And we're pushing for prayer, how's it going? We've been talking a lot about prayer, how's it going? I'll confess, and not as good as I would like. I was praying last night, I took a walk to pray to prepare for tonight and just get my heart said. And I found it, I found it difficult to be as deep and passionate as I wanted to be. Can you guys relate a little bit? Our adversary is trying to steal our depth of conviction, our passion, aren't we disciples of Jesus? You know if you're visiting today, one of the unique things about our congregation is we teach just a basic message, we all have to be disciples of Jesus who give up their entire life for Jesus and his message and his love and to spread it, and we mean it. I mean just having this special every year, it might be shocking for some people, we give it every year. Ten, we used to give 20 times our average weekly offering, we expect that. Why? Well that's not new, that's something we've done, but it might be shocking to some, how are we really doing the basic convictions, how deep are your convictions about what a disciple of Jesus really is and are you holding to it. Jesus said always pray and never give up because our adversary is coming against us and God says if we'll do that, he'll be quick to answer, he'll be quick to provide, God intends for souls to be saved, God intends for us to walk in a vibrant relationship, joyful relationship, spiritual relationship, and God really does have a presence in our lives here and now. When's the last time you saw it really work in your life? I know Mike's preached on prayer a couple of times, and you know one of the things that impacted me so much is having seen their family so closely, knowing the tears they cried about their two sons and still cried about Jake, but now that Scott's faithful, it's awesome, they cried many tears seeing their sons go through the trials as we all do as parents. We want nothing more than our closest loved ones to walk with God, that's what I want, I want my closest loved ones to know him and be near him and I saw the tears and the great victory to see Scott and Jake faithful to Jesus, it's an awesome victory. Do you see power in your life of God answering the prayers, I believe that some of us don't see it or we're doubting and we're giving up on prayer. My mom was an alcoholic my entire life and I remember becoming a disciple and I remember praying, knowing in my spirit that the one hope for her life was to become a disciple of Jesus and believing the power of God could change her. I prayed it, I didn't pray it every day but I prayed it for years and when I was doing well spiritually I would pray it more frequently, more passionately, I would shed tears, knowing that she was such a mess, my whole life is such a mess, I wanted her to desperately know God and I started thinking you know God answered the prayers because he says he's going to grant justice, he's going to give people the opportunity to know him. You know we got to beg him to change hearts but I, you know with my mom not enough maybe a foundation got put in her, she ended up going through a horrible accident, ended up because I believe that the prayers of disciples and the prayers I sent to God, God ended up moving her out here to California, I hadn't lived near here in 20 years but she ended up moving out here years ago and many of you knew her. She got an opportunity to study the Bible with the most tenacious older women in the ministry, Molly Monster right, who studied, my mom hated Molly the first you know three months that she knew her and later she loved her and adored her because she wouldn't give up and you know they went through the studies and my mom did not repent of all the things she needed to repent of but you know and like God be the judge of her soul, I know that she got every opportunity that God granted the justice to the prayers and in that I can take comfort. Do you see God working? You know there's a minister that wrote a book that I've preached out of a little bit lately, it's called Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire and it's a good book on prayer and he tells the story of his daughter Chrissy, he's a pastor of this church in New York and his daughter Chrissy as many teens do, she drifted. She drifted off into drugs, she ended up leaving home in age 16 as the minister, he didn't even know where she was and he's leaving this big church and he tells the story how this one Christmas, she didn't even come by the visit, he had no idea where she was and they were trying with the two other kids to have a great Christmas time and the truth is they just felt a death sentence in their heart, they just felt, you know when you're somebody close to you is like that, it hurts so deeply and as the minister of this great church who pioneered it on prayer, he pioneered this whole church on prayer meetings, you know he really didn't focus that much on prayer, he got shallow, he used money, he tried to convince her to do different things, his church had gotten big and so he's using all the resources to get her to do stuff but she would have none of it and was going her own way and was unspiritual and had gotten into drugs and was just gone. Until he finally got so desperate and he shares in the story just how he got so desperate, it was like when he had to begin the church, he got so desperate he had nothing left to rely on and sadly that's where we often won't pray until it's near death and Jesus is the same, don't give up, keep praying, don't wait till that point. Now the truth is when you get to that point and you pray that's a good thing, some get to that point and they still don't pray. They got on their knees, one woman in the congregation said hey we need to change the whole prayer meeting just for your daughter, he hadn't even told the congregation what was going on with her but they kind of knew and they began to pray, the whole congregation began to pray, they prayed, he said in the story many of the women were on their knees just crying, loud cries like Jesus did, loud cries, groaning, crying for hours, just crying and groaning and praying, it got changed his girl's life, he got home that day from the prayer meeting, he talked to his wife who was depressed over all this and said it's over, God's going to change it, it has to happen, within 32 hours the daughter whom he hadn't seen for months showed up at the doorstep and just turned herself in. There are countless stories like that in this congregation and throughout the world of people's lives changing when we pray and do not give up, amen. Number two, we need to never give up seeking God, you know there's a story of a great leader of the nation of Israel, Asa and Asa was one of the kings who came after Solomon in second chronicles we find the story of Asa and what happened was his dad and his grand dad who were the you know the offspring of Solomon, they had, Solomon had gotten so powerful he'd become worldly and they were ungodly kings, the kings that came after Solomon in the nation of Israel were ungodly, did not obey God, worshiped foreign gods, did detestable things but Asa somehow just had a heart to pray to God and connect with God and we find that he relied on God, he tore down all the foreign idols in the land and look with me in second chronicles chapter 14 verse 9, second chronicles chapter 14 verse 9, let's look there, his country began to rely on God, got rid of all the stuff that was holding them back and when an enemy came against them he relied on God, look what it says in verse 9, it says, "Zero, the Kishite marched out against them with a vast army and 300 chariots came as far as Marisha, Asa went out to meet him and they took up battle positions in the valley of Zephath near Marisha, then Asa called to the Lord his God," verse 11, "and said, 'Lord there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty, help us O Lord our God, for we rely on you and in your name we have come against this vast army O Lord your God, do not let man prevail against you and as you read on God absolutely demoralizes, devastates and fights on his beside and demoralizes the other army and they route them because he relied and you know this is a king had come on the scene after his parents even weren't spiritual, if you read on, he look all onto chapter, second chronicles chapter 15, alright, second chronicles chapter 15, look in verse 1, says, "The Spirit of God came upon Azariah, son of Obed, he went out to meet Asa and said to him, 'Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin,' that's something we need to listen to, 'the Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you." It doesn't mean he won't love you, but he won't be with you and the Asa sought God's favor and then the Prophet comes to him and encourages him, yes, continue to do that, great job, you're awesome, you're doing incredible things, you're seeking God even amongst difficulty, don't give up seeking God even amongst difficulty, look down to verse 15 of chapter 15, alright, look what he does, don't you see, all Judah rejoiced about the oath because they had sworn it wholeheartedly and as the oath to serve God. They sought God eagerly and he was found by them so the Lord gave them rest on every side. King Asa also listened to this, deposed his grandmother Makka for her position from her position as queen mother because she had made a repulsive astral pole. That's disgusting, if you know what astral pole is, a phallic symbol, they worship the fertility, provide fertility, it was it was ungodly, disgusting, impure. Asa cut down the pole, broke it up and burned it in the key drawn valley, deposed his own grandma. Grandma's are the matriarchs of most families. Asa stood up against family, he stood up and said, I'm going to do what is right, amidst all the opposition, but do we give up in the face of opposition at school high school students? There is so much opposition to spirituality. We're so easily want to be light that will do as the people do and act as the people act and become as the people are instead of cutting a new path and showing people the path that they need to follow. High school students, I don't know if I could have done it. I commend you of your disciple in high school. Don't give up. Seeking God. Keep seeking them. We want everyone of our students in here, every one of them to become disciples of Jesus and faithful ones. Not co-hearsed into it, but deeply powerful in the word of God. Powerful in prayer. We can turn the tide at least within your social realm. You can turn the tide of ungodliness if you will not give up. You know, that's what Asa did. He turned the tide. He changed the whole country around. But here's the scary thing. At the end of his life, he had another challenge that came his way after he had already done this for years and years. He had been a disciple for years, many of us, many years. It is not easier when you get older. Look what happens. Look him down in chapter 16. I want you to see what happens in verse 7. It says, what did it happen? Well, I'll give you a little preface before this guy comes. What happened was he was fighting another battle and he paid another army to fight the battle for him. And they won. But instead of praying to God, he got all the money that he had, paid for another army nearby to help him out. He relied on money and resources that were tangible that he could see with his eye, that were resources that he had control over. Look what says in verse 7. It says, "At that time, Hennenai, the seer, came to Asa, King of Judah, and said to him, 'Because you relied on the king of Aram, whom he had paid. And not on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand. In other words, they'll have to battle them for years. We're not the Kushites and Libyans, they mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen. Yet when you relied on the Lord, he delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on, you will be at war. Later on, after this guy came to him, he actually got mad at him and rebuked him through him in jail. You know, he wouldn't listen to the rebuke. He got so hard-hearted. Later on, he got sick, really sick. He wouldn't even pray to God. He sought only the physician's help, would not beg God for mercy and healing. He relied on himself. Never give up seeking God. Never give up relying on God. Never give up seeking his wisdom on your life. Church, we did it a whole four months out of the Holy Spirit. Are you asking the Holy Spirit? What should I do with my life? What should I do with my time? What should I, how should I serve God? Should I go on one of these mission teams that's going on? How much should I give? What can I do to sacrifice? How is my life going to play out? Have you become shallow and unspiritual? I fear many of us have. I'll tell you why, because I feel the temptation in my own heart. I feel it. I'm battling like, you know, I've got, I can be the minister. I've done this for a while now. I can make this happen. How about relying on God? How about being deeply passionate and consumed? You know what happens to me is I start feeling, when I know I'm not close to God, I feel overwhelmed. You feel that feeling? I know there's issues out there, and I know that I can't handle them. And so if I'm thinking about me, I'm like, you know, just shoot me. I'm like, I can't handle it. That's how I feel. But if we're walking with God, it's an easy thing. And I, when I feel this, when I felt them late, so I'm confessing I felt them, like, okay, why do I feel I just got back from some time off? Why would I feel that? Relying on God? Thinking about him praying to him, vibrant, deep prayer, deep reliance on God changes things. How are you doing today? Do we seek God? You cannot give up seeking God. You got to seek him. He's the answer. He's the only thing that's going to make you happy really in life, right? You're not going to have a deep joy in your heart, just because you got a big check in the mail. This is going to be spent, and you're going to lose that money at some point, and the joy will be gone. If our joy comes from having money in the mail, and some of us get checks, call students get checks in the mail, and they're like, whoo, got my financial aid, and they're all happy. And by the end of the corner, they're like, can you give me guys money? We're too like that. We get too happy. Things are never as good as they seem, and they're never as bad as they seem. The Bible says, just be joyful, always be joyful in the Lord, even through trial and hardship, whatever's going on, but you got to seek God and never give up seeking God. Never give up. My third point is this. Never give up doing good. Who took your regulations? Chapter six. I close out here. Galatians 6, look in verse 7. Says, do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature from that nature will reap destruction. The one who sows to please the spirit from the spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. The work that you do, God says will pay off. You know, our ushers coming here early, our song leaders coming here early. Those that prepare for worship services, those that lead family groups, those that serve their own physical families because it's right. Those who get up early and get in their car at 5 a.m. to get to work to pay the bills, to feed their family, it is right. You have to work in life. Or you'll reap destruction. You cannot mock God. We can't mock God. You can't play games with God. We said, Jesus, Lord, we met it. We studied the Bible. Those of us here that understood what it meant to be a disciple, and if you haven't, we want you to understand it. We want you to study the Bible, Lord. What does it really mean? What does it really mean to be a Christian? I want to know. That's what I'm going to do. What it really says. Because you can't mock God and you can't fake Christianity. Some of us in here, we come in and we come to church and that's a good thing. I'm so grateful you've made it. You need to keep making it. You know what? We have church on Tuesday night too, or family group. This week's family group meeting. You need to make that as well. And more than those are just two times we gather as a body to get strong spiritually. You cannot mock. You can't fake your walk with God. I don't want our cars to get wider. I want it to get deeper. That's the theme. Deeper. Deeper in conviction. More prayer. Family group leaders. Have you taken your people out for prayers? Have you organized prayer chains? Come on, leaders. Are you doing? I know that some places is going on. It needs to be going on everywhere. We need prayer warriors. I confess we need to have more gatherings and whole congregation and praying together. Long prayers. Early prayers. Do not give up doing what is good. Do the good. You will reap a harvest if you do not give up. Don't give up inviting your friends out to hear the word of God. Sometimes you invite a hundred people and not one will come. I don't think too many of us invited a hundred lately. Time to work on that, right? But let's make some goals. Let's invite some people to stuff. Let's bring them on out. Let's let them hear the word of God. He'll work if you do not give up. You will reap a harvest. Remember the story of the ancient Chinese bamboo tree. You know that story is one of my favorite. It applies to all areas of life. The first year you plant the seed of the bamboo tree, you see nothing. You water it and for different strains of the bamboo, you'll water it the second year and you'll see nothing. In the third year you'll water it. You'll make sure everything is right with the soil and nothing. Even the fourth year, watering it, checking the soil, making sure everything's healthy, the temperatures, everything's needed for it to grow correctly. Nothing. But in the fifth year, the bamboo tree has been known to grow up to 90 feet in one year. If you sat there long enough, you could actually see the thing growing. You need to be pretty patient. You do the numbers in a year, 90 feet, like a centimeter. It takes a while. Every 30 hours thing. But if you really were patient, you'd see it. What was going on during those five years? The root system was being built. It was doing what it needed to do. You need to continue to do what you need to do for you to grow. You want to be fruitful with your spiritual family, with your physical family. You want to be fruitful. Continue to do what you need to do. Be an example. Be faithful. You know, showing up makes an impact on people. Coming to church on time, making sacrifices, saying, "This is the most important thing of my life. I want you to see it." It makes a difference. People see it. They chalk that over the back of their mind, "Oh, that's what's important to them." And it helps them to develop a conviction for themselves if they ever turn to God. Don't give up doing what is good and what is right. You know, God did not give up on us, did he? And he won't give up on us. I want to close out in Roman date verse 35. One of my favorite verses on how God's love cannot be taken away from us. Never give up. As Winston Churchill said in one of his speeches, "Never give in, never give in, never ever ever ever in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in, except the convictions of honor and good sense." Never yield to force, never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. Because as in Romans date 35, God's love, it says, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?" As it is written, "For your sake we face death all day long. We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. Know in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us, for I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God, that it is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let's never give up. Amen. Steve, I appreciate the lesson. Last night, Libby and I were attending a birthday party for a friend of ours in LA, and we got there early to help kind of set up with the event. There was a guy standing there that I hadn't seen for a while, and I first met him twenty five years ago. He was a one year old Christian at that time, and he was one of those people who was just bigger than life. He was a national champion boxer, had been converted, just one of those really tough people that you thought, "Boy, you get somebody like that, and they will. They'll just be warriors for Jesus forever." About a year later, fell in love with and married an international model who had become a Christian, and they were asked to go in the ministry, been in the ministry for, they had been married for twenty four years, been in the ministry for about the same amount of time, led churches all over, done incredible things. About six, seven years ago, when things started getting a little hanky, he was in a situation where the security of his job was at stake, and he ended up losing his job, not because they weren't satisfied with him, but because finances were a mess at that time, and a lot of their support had come from missions contributions. When that dried up, he lost his job, and he kept coming out, and they were moved to the US to be a part of one of the churches, but his heart just slowly drifted away, and he found himself struggling to pray, stop praying. The next thing you know, he started really questioning God, and then he stopped coming to church. This was the first thing that he'd come to in a long time. He's been out of the fellowship for almost six years now, and what brought him back was that his wife of twenty four years left him about a year ago, and it has devastated his entire family, and he was all alone in the middle of the country, and started thinking about where was the place that he had found hope, and it was in the kingdom. So I made some phone calls, and found some individuals that he had known, and one of them happened to be out here, and so he called them and asked for help, and they sent him a plane ticket, flew him out here, and when I saw him, I was just stunned, and as we got a chance to talk, I just thought about how tragic the outcome of his life was, and how damning and devastating the choices he made were, not just on him, but on his whole family, and he didn't happen at once, happened over time, but now his kids, who are incredibly faithful, who are still oldest, are out of college, they want nothing to do with God because they're bitter, they've watched what's happened to their family, their youngest has still got about another year in school, and he just is begging, literally sobbing, begging for help to figure out how to reconnect his child with God. What we're doing is Plan A. It is the only plan, and I appreciate Steve's focusing on this, because we're all vulnerable. If we don't continue to devote ourselves to prayer, if we don't continue to devote ourselves to pursuing that relationship with God, God will not be mocked. We may pretend he doesn't exist, he will never pretend we don't exist, and he will allow us to face the consequences of our choices, and those consequences have ripple effects on our whole families, on everybody we care about. 1980, I gave my special contribution that year, and my roommate and I, we were starting a new church, and my roommate and I had purchased a joy bus for the church, because that was one of the things that they had listed, that they needed, and it came time for the special, and because we had done that, I wasn't sure I was going to come up with my special, and the only money I had left in my account was my tuition money. And I remember that morning before church thinking, so I gave my tuition money. And the following week, my tuition came due, and I had no money left, and I kept thinking, okay, what am I going to do? Because I can't not finish my education, but I had a car. And I thought, you know what? I got to do, sell a car. So I called a friend, asked him to pick me up, he drove me to the house, went to pick up my Chrysler Cordova with the Corinthian letter, was going to sell that thing, and as we stopped, I stopped by the mailbox, opened the mailbox, and there was a letter from the government that looked kind of like one of those IRS notices you get, that you owe taxes. And I was feeling really sick, went in and opened that thing up, and it was actually a check from the government for exactly the amount I had given in my special. Paid my tuition off. I believe that was from God, because I hadn't asked for anything from the government. They just figured that I had made a mistake on something, and I got the money from them. I don't know where you're at, but I know where God's at. God can and will do what He promises. The only question is, will we trust that? Or will we trust the stuff this world trust that will not last? There will be a day when we will stand before God, and there will be no question about the validity of who He is. The only question will be about our validity. So I appreciate it. I've watched so many of my friends through the years. Give up and give in, and it has never in 35 years turned out to be better for their life. It always ends up producing death, almost always ends up producing divorce. Almost always produces spiritual death for their children. But for the people that hang in there and fight it out, even if they just barely make it into heaven as one escaping through the flames, it always produces eternal life. Amen? So I challenge you and encourage you. Don't ever give up. What we're doing is right, and it's all the matters. Amen? Thanks again, Steve. I appreciate it. We have a few quick announcements before we close out. Number one, I want to remind all those college students.
Steve preaches an amazing lesson on how we should never give up on God. Which mean always praying, continuously to seek God, and persevere in doing good.