When You Feel Like Giving Up

i want to talk to those of you today who feel like quitting maybe you feel like throwing in the towel it could be your marriage you've tried and you've tried and you've tried and you don't feel like there's any way to get it back to the place where it should be it might be you feel like putting on a dream you thought one day you could and you would and now you think there's just no way maybe it's on a ministry that you felt like god wanted you to do but no matter how hard you try it just doesn't come through it could be on your kids you don't want to throw them away but you prayed and you prayed and you prayed and you just don't see any way that they're going to come back to jesus and live in a way that's honorable to him it could be an addiction that you've tried to overcome and you've prayed and you've fought and you've dedicated and rededicated and tried and tried again but you can't seem to put it behind you it could be your prayer for someone else to come to faith in jesus and the harder you pray the further they seem to get from god some of you it might just be life you've done everything you can to hang in there and it feels like life is just too much this is a message for someone who's tried and prayed and believed and feel like you've got nothing left it's my prayer for you that god's word would speak to you today from hebrews chapter 10 verses 35 through 37 when the author to the hebrew said this so do not throw away your confidence it will be richly rewarded you need to what let's say it allowed you need to persevere our virtue for today is the virtue of perseverance you need to persevere you need to keep going you need to keep trusting you need to keep believing you need to hang in there you need to persevere so that when you've done the will of god you'll receive what he has promised for in just a little while he who is coming will come and will not delay in just a little while how many of you notice that god is rarely early but he's never late in just a little while he will come you need to persevere the title for today's message is when you feel like giving up father we ask that your word would speak life and faith that we could persevere by your power so that when we've done the will of god we will receive what you have promised we pray this in jesus name and everybody said amen amen who's ready for some good news today if you're ready say i'm ready are you ready you can type that in a chat i'm ready i do want to share some good news to those of you who know that god has more for you and you're tired of selling for less i'll give you a resource from angela duckworth she's someone who studied at harvard and oxford and she went and did research and asked the question why do successful people succeed and she and her team went and researched three different categories to find out why people succeeded they went first to a famous military academy then they went to some very challenging schools and then they went and studied world-class spelling bee champions and they wanted to find out of those cadets who went to the military school which ones succeeded and which ones dropped out first and why and when they went to the inner city schools they wanted to find out which teachers was successful and went the distance and which one caved in and quit before the end of the semester and they went to look at fifth grade brilliant little kids that spell words with 72 letters and wanted to find out why when they were equally talented some would rise to the top and some would cave under the pressure why are some people successful and others aren't and what they discovered was this that it wasn't what they expected it wasn't the iq it wasn't the intelligent quotient but instead it was actually the a q the adversity quotient it wasn't in just how smart they were but it was how much they could overcome not iq but aq and angela wrote a very helpful book called grit and in the book she has a quote that i like she said this what is grit grit is passion and perseverance for long-term goals i like this it's both passion meaning i'm excited about it but it's not just passion it's perseverance and it's not just perseverance for a short season but it's perseverance for long term goals we're not talking about perseverance like just for a semester or for a few weeks we're talking about like raising a child with special needs we're talking about serving jesus when you have a chronic illness we're talking about showing back up when it's easier to walk away we're talking about the virtue of perseverance and today i want to show you a very powerful story that i believe could give many of you the faith to go on when it would be easier to quit we're going to look today in the old testament interestingly enough we're going to look at the sixth book of the bible we're going to look at the sixth chapter of the sixth book in the bible and i'm going to quote a very good friend of mine pastor stephen furtick who preached a message here six years ago actually it was seven if it had been six that had been six six six which would have made us the antichrist which many people say that we are but it was 667 and i'm going to share with you his title his title was don't stop on 6. don't stop on six which is a good thing to always do except for when it comes to having children because we actually have six kids for those of you who are a little bit older than i am how many of you remember the show eight is enough anybody remember that show eight is enough yeah six is enough so i mean like two is enough something like a cat's enough yes it is but whatever and so the title is don't stop on six now some of you say you know like hey you copied that title or some ideas from steven furtick i just want to tell you right now yes i did i give him credit i asked for permission and for the record he probably owes me one or two okay so full credit to where some of these ideas came from but let me give you the context and then we're going to look at the sixth chapter of the sixth book of the bible god had promised his people jericho this is the context but they had yet to take hold of the promise and if you look at joshua chapter six verse one we're gonna look at a big portion of scripture that tells us this now the gates of jericho were tightly shut because the people were afraid of the israelites so you've got jericho you've got these big walls and no one was allowed to go out or in but the lord said to joshua this is what god said i have given you jericho its king and all his strong warriors you and your fighting men should march around the town once a day for six days this is your assignment scripture goes on to say this seven priests will walk ahead of the ark each carrying a ram's horn blue on the seventh day you to march around the town seven times with the priest blowing the horn when you hear the priests give one long blast of the rand harms have all the people shout let's practice that all of our churches have all the people shout very good those of you online just type in i'm shouting and giving me some exclamation points and all the people would shout as loud as they can and the walls of the town were collapsed and the people can charge straight into the town the assignment was simple walk around the walls one time a day on the seventh day walk around seven times shout blow your horns and the walls will come tumbling down why do we give up when god has promised us so much why do we find it hard to keep going and often lose our trust in the promises of god i want to show you two reasons that are very very common and you might see yourself in these reasons that i see myself why do we give up the first reason is number one is because our perspective is often limited our perspective is often limited for example let's talk about jericho for a moment jericho's not a very big city in fact you could march around it in about an hour or so so the problem wasn't that the city was big the problem is that the walls were high if you can imagine the israelites were so close to the promise it was just on the other side of the walls but the walls were so high the promise seemed impossible to obtain maybe some of you can relate there are those of you like you know what it is that you want you've got a dream you got a vision you got a place that you'd like to be you know what you want to have but all you can see in your life is walls obstacles problems i know this is where i want to be in fact i believe that's where god wants me to be but you all you can see is that which is keeping you from the promise maybe for you it's like you want to get out of debt and you got a vision to get out of debt and you believe you're going to get out of debt and you get so into it you get dave ramsey's face tattooed on your arm you know we're going to be gazelle intense debt-free and the moment you declare it three things break and you just see the walls you think we're gonna be a family that honors jesus and so we're gonna go to church and each other family we're going to church and then they're running late and you cuss at them all the way there to church that didn't go well we're not serving jesus good here are we you're going to try to mend a broken relationship with a family member and you take them out to dinner mistake number one doing it in a public place and it breaks down into a shouting match you had great intentions and they called security on you and applebee's or whatever it is the problem is we have a very limited perspective and here's what's interesting if you remember our text in verse 1 it's fascinating verse 1 says jericho was securely barred remember that it said no one can go in and no one could go out but then in verse 2 it said god says i've given you jericho verse 1 says you can't go in verse 2 says i've already given it to you god says why did he do that because god is the only one who can speak in the past tense before a present reality in other words he's the only one who can tell you what is when what is isn't yet i wonder if some of you might be in a situation like that in your own life where what he says about you is different than what you see about you what he says about you is different than what you feel about you even now in other words god might say that you're healed and yet you feel broken god might says say that you're blessed but but you feel like he's forgotten you god might say that you're an overcomer by the blood of the lamb and by the words of your testimony but you feel like you're overcome every single day like life is just too much why is it because our perspective is often very very limited it's like the israelites if you notice they don't know the end of the story god told joshua but joshua didn't tell them he just said go march around the walls get up on monday and march on monday get up on tuesday march on tuesday get up on wednesday march or wednesday and if you don't know what happened i'll give you a spoiler alert if you don't want to know the end of the movie put your fingers in your ears because on the seventh day they watched seven times around and the walls came tumbling down if you didn't grow up in sunday school you don't even know there's a kids song about this story and if you know it you just may want to sing it it goes like this joshua fought the battle of jericho helping jericho jericho joshua fought the battle of and the walls came tumbling down now with hand signals just not really don't do that does anybody remember that song type in the chat if you remember that song i i remember that song let me tell you what joshua would have hated that song that's a stupid song that's the dumbest song ever written he would have despised that song you know lie number one because it is stupid number two because they're so much more to the story than what that little song says this wasn't just like a seven day joy hike taking a little canteen and walking around look a butterfly this was not that this was more than 40 years of wandering in the wilderness wondering where are you god and we're ready and you promised and you haven't and we believe you will and we're showing back up and we're hanging in there we don't want to give up and we don't see you but we're sowing back up and we're still believing and when we don't have faith we're trying to have some faith it's not just donna wallace can't even tell he's like this was our life for years hanging on we make it modern day it kind of be like let's just say josh was jacked up messed up addicted to methamphetamines porn addict and he like went for help and went into rehab and backslid and got clean and fell off the wagon again and with the seven step program and declared he was fine and he wasn't fine he prayed and he fasted and everybody was gonna get to give up and finally he found victory finally he found freedom and so they wrote a song about it joshua was addicted to drugs and porn drugs and porn drugs and porn josh was addicted to drugs and poor then he prayed and now he's fine stupid song that's a stupid song that's a dumbest song ever because there's so much more to it and this is a problem so often when you look on at others you see their success and you see their victory lap and you don't know the price they paid and you don't know the pain they endured and you don't know the story behind the story before the story that no one told the story of showing back up and continuing to persevere you can't even imagine the private battles and the personal sacrifices of someone who continues to believe god even when they don't see the promise which he assures will come true is perseverance it's the price it's the private cost why do we give up so often our perspective is limited and secondly our progress isn't always obvious our progress isn't always obvious in fact i'll show you this in scripture again we'll look at a big portion of scripture the bible says this joshua command of the army do not give a war cry and don't raise your voices now once you get there you can shout but at first just shut up that's what he says don't say a thing don't say a word don't even say like hey what's up buddy how's it going oh fine you look so fly don't say a word until the day i tell you to shout then shout don't say a word until the day i tell you shout then shout so he had the ark of the lord carried around the city circling at once and scripture says then the army returned to the camp and spent the night there so on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp and they did this stupid assignment for six days can you imagine their frustration you're not just doing something that seems pointless like walking around the stupid city tooting the horns this was decades of waiting decades of trusting these are warriors they've been trained for battle and they are ready for war and all they got to do was take a morning stroll walk around the block that'd be embarrassing into the day you know sitting there playing spades you know their wife texts hey warrior my brave hunk of a you know what can't wait for you to come home and show me your warrior medals and mm-hmm what'd you do today big boy did you kill some bad guys well we're just warming up stretching we're just stretching the muscles you know and but the battle's coming it's coming and they walked around one day and they walked around the next they didn't see nothing no progress no evidence that god was with them would have been cool if god had made it like a video game you know how when you get to the new level you get the new level music like end of the day you know or or you know like a seventh of the wall falls down like you know and now there's six sevens left just keep on going right that'd be cool no no no new level music because we can handle the process as long as we see progress right come on somebody you can fight for your marriage as long as you believe there's hope you can keep paying down your debt as long as you believe one day you can actually pay something off you can you can eat good if you think you're going to look good on the beach like i'll be snorting the hummus if they'll give me an ab right you know take that thing down it's like you just you if you if you believe if you see some progress right you can endure the pain but they're just walking out there and not seeing any progress at all and then what does joshua do hey boys you're not even allowed to talk don't raise your voices don't say a word why do you think joshua kept them from talking i can't be sure but maybe it's because he knows that sometimes our mouth can be our worst enemy can you imagine if they were allowed to talk like hey bro this is stupid yo bro joshua's lost his dang mind like you're gonna put up with this every day i ain't doing this thing every day it's stupid like 40 years we've been serving god ain't nothing happening i don't know where he is i don't know what he's doing but my feet hurt and this is stupid i came out here to fight i'm not doing this stuff i don't know if you're going to do this but this is the dumbest thing i've ever seen where's god he didn't come if he hadn't come to us by now he's not coming through at all things are bad they're going to get worse that's why sometimes you just got to tell yourself to shut up and keep doing what god told you to do sometimes you got to just preach yourself shut your trap and keep on marching shut up and keep trusting shut up keep praying shut up keep on loving someone who seems unlovable shut up and keep on forgiving shut up and show back up when everybody else runs off sometimes you just got to talk to yourself and say flesh i don't believe you i'm choosing faith circumstances i don't believe you right now i'm choosing god i'm not walking by sight i'm walking by faith shut up feelings i'm trusting god what's interesting again is if you note god told joshua the process would take seven days but joshua didn't tell the people like for all they know like they're in a marching band like here we go again right and this is frustrating when there's no end in sight when you're doing the right thing and it doesn't seem to make a difference it is so much easier to honor god it's so much easier to do what's right it's so much easier to stay the course when you feel like it's working and when it pays off you could stay pure in your singleness if you not knew god was sending you a hottie with a body in six months like oh yeah i'll serve you god to send me my man right you could do that if you knew someone was coming you could deal with your spouse's depression if you knew god would heal the depression by christmas in other words you can take the pain when you know god is still working when there's a payoff where is god in times like that where is he when you don't see him maybe maybe god's just like building their faith he's teaching them to depend on him even when they don't see the results he's building their faith what i've discovered is this that god often does something in you before he does something for you that's my story in the last year marching around the walls and not seeing them come down and i don't know how transparent to be with you i never kind of know how much people can handle but um i know for most of you last year was probably if not the toughest year of your life one of them for most of you especially for those of you who are in any form of leadership and i'll tell you right now it was a tough tough tough year because no matter how much we prayed and how hard we tried to get things right just impossible to get everything right and the personal toll that it took on me was probably way more significant than i realized and midway through i've been in ministry now for 30 years 25 years leading life church i have never once ever looked over the side and thought maybe i should do something else maybe this is too much but midway through last year i just started wondering do i still have what it takes am i still the person does god still want me doing this could somebody else do it better because i don't think i'm doing very good and i kind of looked at the towel and thought for the first time maybe it's time to throw it in [Music] maybe it's time to throw it in i couldn't hear from god like i'm like god give me something give me anything there's the longest time where i just couldn't hear anything like give me a word give me something i'm reading the book i can't hear anything and i heard one word not even like the word and god just told me the word steady it's like okay [Music] i can do study and it wasn't even the assignment it was just the fact that i recognized he's still with me and he kind of brought me back to sinner what i realized is that whenever you're tempted to quit it's always good to remember why you started and i remember i didn't go into this for easy and i didn't go in there to be popular and go and to be liked i went in it because people are lost and dying and need help and salvation and his name is jesus and it's about him and it's not about me and so in some very low moments i mean wrecked with private depression and just hurting i looked at the towel in the same way you might look at the towel and you can throw it in or you can pick it up and wipe the sweat off your face and keep on marching and trusting god i want to talk to someone who's been faithful for a long time you've been trusting god you've been praying you've been believing and you're still not seeing the promise and i want to tell you you may be closer than you think you may be closer than you think i'm reminded of florence chadwick amazing woman the first woman to swim the english channel both ways an incredible accomplishment and in 1952 chadwick decided to attempt a 26-mile swim between the california coastline and the catalina island and 15 hours into this grueling swim a very heavy fog settled in and she lost her bearing and she couldn't see and confused and exhausted discouraged she wanted to get in the boat they said keep swimming keep swimming keep swimming keep swimming and she couldn't take it anymore and she threw in the towel and she quit and it wasn't until she got into the boat and could hear everybody there she realized that the shore was less than a half mile away i don't know who this is for but you may be closer than you think you may be closer than you think our key text you need to persevere you need to persevere so that when you've done the will of god you will receive what he has promised you've been walking maybe for a long time just like we've been doing for some girls in my life who need healing jesus heal please heal i'm begging you to heal i'm coming back and believe i'm like the persistent widow on luke 18. i've done a lap and i'm still praying and i'm doing another lap and i don't see a thing and i'm still praying and god i'm trying to hang on i'm like habakkuk where are you god do you not hear me cry why do you let the innocent suffer i don't understand god i don't see you i'm running around the third lap and i'm continuing to go and god i don't see anything all i see is the walls all i see is the obstacles god i don't see i don't feel you i don't feel like i haven't heard from you and i'm on four and i'm continuing to trust god and now i'm discouraged and now i'm wondering do i need to quit did i have it wrong is he really there and i'm continuing to trust him and i don't feel like it right now and now i'm kind of ticked off and i don't even know if he's real at this point but somehow i get back up and i go around and as i keep on going at one point before i know it i'm actually on lap number six and i may be one lap away from the promise and you may be closer than you think and that's why i came to tell somebody don't you quit on six don't you quit on six don't you put on six or quit on five or quit on four or quit on three or quit on two or quit on one or quit on god don't you quit on your marriage don't quit believing for your children don't don't walk away from your ministry don't abandon the church don't abandon god don't quit on six you may be so much closer than you think you can throw in the towel or you can pick it back up and you can wipe the sweat off your brow and you can keep on walking and you can keep on trusting and you can tell your feelings to shut up because you don't follow your feelings but you have faith you may be closer than you think you are whenever you feel like you're ready to quit just remember why you started and i love what the apostle paul said in galatians 6 9. he said let us not become weary in doing good let us don't go weary in the march don't let us go weary in the faith don't let us go weary and praying and believing and trusting and hanging on when everybody else lets go and we just keep on trusting god walking by faith and not by sight do not grow weary in doing good for at the proper time you will reap a harvest if you do not give up this is for somebody don't quit on six don't quit on god he hears the cries of your hearts he is with you and he is always good what do we do a true virtue the virtue of perseverance let us persevere so that you will experience the blessings of god i don't know who this is for but the devil wants you to throw in a towel jesus took the towel and washed some feet you can take your towel you can wipe off the sweat you can serve some people and you can stay in the game and a promise is true god's word is true you will reap a harvest but you don't give up so father we pray today in the name that is above every name that for those who feel ready to quit that by your power and by your spirit you would keep us running our race eyes focused on jesus doing what you called us to do as you're praying today without looking around i want to talk to anyone who might feel some discouragement maybe some doubt you've been hanging on to a dream a prayer trying to have faith for a long time and you haven't seen the promise fulfilled if that's you today and you need god's help to persevere would you just lift up your hands right now just lift them up you can type in the chat online god help me persevere god help me persevere and father today i just ask that it would not be by our might nor by our power but it will by your be by your spirit that you carry us god not by our own our own effort i know we run out of it and not even by our own faith but by the faith that you give to us just help us keep walking and keep trusting and keep believing because your word is true your promises never fail so god by the power of your spirit for someone in some area that you've called them to experience your goodness your promise give them the faith to persevere give them the faith to persevere and god we believe they'll reap a harvest they'll see the blessing if they keep trusting you and don't give up [Music] as you keep praying today what's really special for me to think about is um the fact that god hasn't given up on some of you god didn't give up on me when year after year i turned away from his goodness god didn't give up on me when i continued to do things against his will that broke his heart god continued to pursue me there's some of you right now you recognize that that maybe god's tried to reach out to different points in your life and uh he's doing it right now what is it it's his love it's his it's his loving kindness it's his goodness that he's reaching out to you it's not an anger he's not mad at you he loves you and he showed you how much he loved you when he became like us when god became flesh when you look at jesus the son of god man you want to talk about love jesus loved the unlovable he touched those that religion rejected he reached out to the lowest of low he reached out to the most broken and he loved them where they were and he invited them hey just leave your old life and come follow me and jesus in his love for us he did something for us that we couldn't do for ourselves he died in our place as the perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of all of our sins and what does he do he just very asks us he doesn't say you gotta be perfect you gotta join a church and do all these things he just says hey leave your old life and just follow me just be my disciple just follow me and when you follow jesus he forgives your sins he makes you brand new he gives you spiritual blessings and direction and life may not always go the way you want it but he's working in all things in all things even the bad things to bring about good because you'll love him and be called according to his purpose today at all of our churches there are those of you you recognize i'm not in a relationship with god i don't know him personally maybe you feel guilty for something that you've done god is patient with you he loves you and he's reaching out to you and i'm going to invite you just to say yes to his invitation just let go of whatever is old let go of whatever has been hurting you wouldn't let go of whatever's been separating from god and just say i want to follow jesus i want to give him my life when you do when you cry out to him he hears your prayer he forgives every sin and he makes you brand new you're not watching by accident you're here because god loves you today those of you online to all of our churches who say i need his grace i need his grace i need his grace i'm letting go of my old life today i give my life to jesus that's your prayer just lift your hands high right now all of our churches say yes i'm giving my life to christ as we see tons of people today at our churches and online those of you online just just type in the chat i'm giving my life to jesus just type that in right now and we would be honored wherever you are to pray with you more importantly god hears your prayer just pray this aloud if you're comfortable pray heavenly father i give you my life jesus forgive my sins save me i surrender my whole life to you fill me with your spirit so i could know you and so i could follow you direct my steps my life is not my own i give it all to you thank you for new life you have mine in jesus name i pray because somebody worship big today celebrate welcome those born in the dogs family [Applause]

Channel: Life.Church

Views: 139,047

Rating: 4.9199147 out of 5

Keywords: Craig Groeschel, Sermon, Life.Church, Lifechurch, life church, life church sermons, craig rochelle, groeschel craig, church sermons 2021, perseverance, persevere, how to persevere, what is perseverance, when you feel like giving up, tempted to quit, feel like quitting, when you feel like quitting, should i quit, feel like quitting everything, when you feel like giving up in life, when you feel like giving up on life, i want to give up on life christian, steven furtick

Id: wITHAgusAuI

Length: 36min 31sec (2191 seconds)

Published: Sun May 23 2021