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Filled with Perseverance By June Perry

That last line,
Oh, the time is drawing near, is very appropriate to me.
When I woke up this morning,
I thought and hoped I was still in New Zealand.
And I thought, Oh, I'm not there yet.
And then suddenly I realized I was.
And then using a chorus, Oh, the time is drawing near.
It's come, ladies.
First of all, I'd like to
send special love and greetings
from the women's conventions throughout New Zealand.
All the WCs throughout New Zealand send you their love.
You are going to regret those initials by the time I finish with them.
This title, Perseverance, I'll tell you,
I've never had to persevere quite so much
with a talk as I've had to persevere with this one.
And now you lot have got to persevere with me.
You know, I'd wake up in the middle of the night
and my husband would look across and he'd say, Perseverance.
He said, they get two or three thousand women over there, don't they?
He said, why don't you get the lady who thought of the subject to stand up?
Then my mother came in one day and she looked at the brochure.
She knew I was having a bit of trouble.
She said, you know, June, she said,
looks as if those other speakers have persevered.
More than she could say for me because she knows me.
I'm very much an instant sort of person.
You know, I live in an instant age and
things for me happen, have to happen straight away.
That's why I make a lousy cup of tea.
I never give it time to brew, you know, I can't get to it quickly enough.
Things have to be done straight away.
You know, I mean, if it's ten o'clock at night,
I'm going to be a little bit late.
You know, I mean, if it's ten o'clock at night
and I decide to move the furniture, it gets moved.
Things have to be done straight away.
If there is somebody with whom I'm sharing Christ,
I want them zapped into the kingdom straight away.
You know, I can't wait to see them come to know Christ, that's me.
And yet when we look at scripture,
we see throughout that God's character was one of perseverance
with all those characters throughout scripture.
And certainly when I look back on my own life
and I stop and I think how many years it took before I ever came to know Him
and I think the way in which He's persevered with me since then,
obviously that word sums up His very character.
And yet as I thought around that word, I couldn't help thinking, you know,
in a way it's the missing link
within many of our Christian lives, particularly my own.
It's like the theory of evolution, you know, it's got the missing link.
And it's very much the missing link I think for many of us.
It's a word we so seldom use nowadays.
I certainly had to learn perseverance
when sharing my faith in Christ
on prison visitation.
I know that for many of those folk there, it's going to take years
before they'll ever come to know Christ.
It's going to take years, you know, of talking to them and being friends with them and
really getting to know Auckland's best burglars,
or worst, whichever way you look at it.
It's going to take a long, long time for me to know
and with so many of them.
So many things in life just don't happen
straight away, even though we live in such an instant age.
Sometimes, of course, it does happen all of a sudden,
especially when we stop, as it were, trying hard and stop persevering.
When we were in England and we were involved in youth work,
we used to have the young people from our church up to our flat for coffee afterwards.
And having served, as it were, the first sitting of coffee,
we then used to say, right, everybody out.
And they'd all have to go out onto the streets
and find other kids whom they could then invite in for coffee.
And then we'd squeeze everybody in, having got twice as many, you see,
and we'd have them in the hall and up the stairs and in the corridor and
in the dining room and in the lounge and everybody sitting on the floor,
as many teenagers as we could.
Everybody sitting on the floor, as many teenagers as we could.
And one night they found this fellow on the streets
and they brought him up for a cup of coffee and he turned out to be an art student.
And he came very regularly on a Sunday night
and he used to chat to us about the Christian faith, but
he gave us a very, very hard time on it all.
He used to come out in the kitchen, he used to really smear and jeer
at the whole thought of Christianity.
And one night I said to him, you know, Russell, let's...
he was going on and on, I said, look, for goodness sake,
let's talk about something else, let's talk about art.
And we started to talk about art
and all of a sudden, without cheerio, I'm off,
he tore out,
slammed the front door, I thought the whole flat was going to fall to pieces.
And I said to myself, well, of course, that's the last we'll ever see of him.
He'll never be interested in Christ.
And to my amazement, when I got home from school the following night,
there was a knock on the door and there was Russell.
I said, oh, hello, and I didn't sort of mention
about the previous night and what he'd done.
Want a cup of tea? I usually start with that.
He came in and had a cup of tea
and he said, what do I do next?
He said, what do you mean, what do you do next?
He said, well, after I left here last night in such a temper,
I was travelling home, I got off the bus, I have to walk over the common,
usually get a bit scared, I've always got my knife on me.
It was quite a bright moonlight night
and as I was walking across the common on my own,
he said, I thought about what you said to me
and I thought, I wonder if it's true.
And I stopped there and then in my tracks.
And I said, Lord Jesus, if you're real,
take over the whole of my life.
I don't understand how it can happen, but
I'm prepared to hand myself over to you if you're really there.
And then he beamed from ear to ear and Christ almost came out of his ear holes.
You know, he'd really found Christ.
He'd really found Christ and there was such a change in him.
And so he came to know Christ, one might say, almost literally, sort of out of the blue.
And he is in such contrast with other friends of mine, as I've mentioned,
and now no doubt you have many friends too and you think, well, you know,
it's going to take quite a long time before Christ will ever really
be able to bring that person to himself.
But the Christ who lives within us never gives up.
We've got a painted verse meant in New Zealand, I don't know if you have it in Australia,
and it goes something like that, the paint keeps on keeping on.
And that's Christ, isn't it? He keeps on keeping on.
He never gives up with any one of us.
And if your experience is anything like mine, I haven't been a Christian all that long.
And I decided I'd give up the Christian faith. I couldn't keep it up any longer. I was a bit sick of it.
I wasn't getting a great deal out of church going, finding it a terrible drag and bore.
I could think of many things I could do with my time that I would enjoy so much more.
I wanted to go back to the way that I was.
And I thought to myself, I think I'll give up Christianity and I'll go and do my own thing.
And you know, every morning when I woke up, the Lord said, Good morning, I'm still here, I'm not going.
Every morning, every morning He said that to me, never gave up on me.
And all I can say is, well, you know, literally, thank heaven, thank heaven.
When we say to the Lord, well, I'm going to give up, He doesn't take us seriously.
You may say, well, I have friends and they've given up the Christian faith. They really have.
But I'm not too sure about that, because we never know what's going on behind the scenes.
In some cases it is that they never really knew Christ in the beginning.
In other cases it may take quite a number of years.
In other cases it may take quite a number of years
before Christ can really get a grip and a hold on their lives again.
You know, when it talked about the Good Shepherd going after the lost sheep, the word that I like most
in that verse is the word until.
It was until He found, He sought until He found the One that was lost.
And so, as I say, He never gives up on us.
I suppose another word for perseverance might be God's stickability, His stickability with each one of us.
And last night we heard about the total pardon that we have in Christ.
Not just a past experience, but very much a present tense experience that God continues to forgive us.
He continues to pardon us.
And so it also applies to the future.
That in the future He is going to continue to forgive the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, cleanses us.
Present continuous tense from all sin.
And I'm quite sure, you know, that once we're saved, once we have come to know Christ, we're always saved.
And if that weren't true, I for one wouldn't be here today.
And I for one would not continue, I tell you this, as a Christian.
Because my salvation, my assurance that God has a home for me in heaven as it were,
would depend upon the life that I live.
And I know right now I'll never make it.
That if coming to know Christ, and receiving a place in heaven depends on my debit and credit account,
then I've had it, right now.
Once again thank heaven, it depends upon Him and what He has done for me.
In the death that He died, on that cross, all I can do is to say, well thank you Lord.
How do I know that once I'm saved, I'm always saved?
Supposing you go away from Christ, supposing you get run over.
I had a talk about this with a telephone man one day, he was a Christian, but a very miserable one.
Quite certain that a person could lose their salvation.
You see, you may go away from Christ for ten years.
On the other hand, if each one of us care to look back on a day's program,
it is true that many, many moments during that day we don't really depend upon Him.
We depend upon ourselves, we step out of line,
we do what we want to do, we think our own thoughts, we go our own way, and so on.
And yet Christ never gives up on us, and in Hebrews 13 verse 5,
I'm going to read it from the Amplified Version, because the Amplified brings out the Greek in a very strong way.
He says this, I will not in any way fail you,
nor give you up, nor leave you without support.
Now I don't know what your human situation is, I don't know what you're going through in your life,
but to have the power and the presence of a person who says, I'll never leave you without support,
I'll always be there, you can always count on me.
And then it comes this way in the Greek, and the English doesn't quite convey it.
He says, I will not, I will not, I will not in any degree leave you helpless,
nor forsake you, nor let you down, nor relax my hold on you, assuredly not.
Now what more could any one of us ask for than that?
We talk about one way, I think this verse is the no way. No way will Christ ever leave you or me.
Once Christ lives within the heart of a believer by His Holy Spirit, He's there for keeps.
Even though there'll be many, many times when you'll feel a very long way away from Him,
nevertheless, once He has you, you're always His.
He says, doesn't He, that no one will ever pluck them out of my hand. No one.
You know as a child when you're playing with your father and he's got something in his hand
and you try and get it out, it's impossible to open up those fingers.
And so it is with our loving Heavenly Father that He has us within His hands
and no one in no way could ever get us out of that position,
that we are eternally saved, we are eternally secure in Christ.
This doesn't depend on my feelings because as women we're very emotional, our feelings vary so much.
It depends on something which is completely and utterly factual.
It's not only the eternal security of the believer but it's also the maximum security of the believer.
And I think back to that maximum security prison that I visited in Auckland, that's quite a place.
It cost the government eight million dollars to build.
One of the prisoners wrote me a letter one day and said,
I'm writing to you from my eight million dollar home, not everybody could put that.
And you've only got to look at it from the distance to know that it's utterly impossible
to get out of that place, quite impossible.
Just along one corridor you have to go through three doors.
There are TV cameras everywhere just like this place.
Big Brother is watching you, there are voices come from walls.
Quite impossible ever to get out of maximum security prison.
And that's the kind of security we have in Christ, absolute maximum security.
A God who says, no way will I ever let you go, whatever you do in your life, wherever you go,
however much you step out of line, I'm right there waiting to forgive you, to welcome you back as my own.
I guess if some of those friends of mine in prison were to spend all their days
trying to work out how they could escape, they would be utterly frustrated and right miserable.
At least in maximum security once they're there they have to resign themselves to the fact
that that's where they're going to stay so they might as well make the most of it.
And it is so true, isn't it, of the Christian that when we do endeavour to get away from him
we're the most frustrated and miserable of all people.
We're worse off, quite frankly, than those who have never known Christ.
And then there's that lovely verse which talks about the Good Shepherd and finding that which is lost.
And then it goes on to say about the way in which the angels in heaven will rejoice when we come back to Him.
It's great, isn't it, to think that you might cause a sensation in heaven by coming back to Him.
In the Melbourne Convention next weekend we're going to study one Peter
and there are three words in that whole letter that seem to flash like a beacon.
And it's the three words, come to Him, come to Him, come to Him.
And you know as women it's invariably, even though we're Christians and we're great churchgoers
and we're in leadership and all kinds of things and we stand on the platform here.
Invariably it's true, it's the last thing we do.
We'll go to our husbands and tell them all about it.
We might tell the family, we might tell the neighbours, we might tell our friends.
Rush around in circles using up a load of nervous energy.
Instead of actually going into our rooms, closing that door, being entirely on our own
and getting down on our knees, right in that devotional position.
You know I think there's a lot in that.
I always tell our students that I prefer them to clean the kitchen floor with a scrubbing brush rather than a mop.
I say do not do it with a mop, you just push the dirt to the kickboard.
I like you to get right down to it in the devotional position.
The same thing, I like to clean that toilet and hug it, get right round the back.
Get it really clean, get down into the devotional position you see.
And that is so true of you and me. Let's get right down to it, let's come to Him. It's so simple.
That we can miss the point. And the devil's always on the attack, isn't it?
And he'll think a thousand and one things that we've got to do, rather than actually taking time
and saying well Lord I'll come to you, you sort this and this and this out.
You show me your way, you direct just what is next in my life.
And so we have total pardon and we're totally saved.
And the weekend is all about the total woman. Mind you I honestly think
a few saunas and beauty treatments and a hairdo and all the rest should have been laid on this weekend.
It should be something inward as well as something outward, really and truly.
So that we really do know that we're totally, or that we could be, but anyway that's beside the point.
But Paul says this, in Philippians 4 verse 3 he says,
I have strength for all things in Christ who empowers me.
I'm ready for anything, I'm equal to anything through Him who infuses inner strength into me.
That is I am self-sufficient in Christ's efficiency.
You know for me it's often true, it's like a Maori student we had through Bible school
who often used to say, I'm inefficient in Christ's efficiency.
And I remember on one occasion he very kindly and very nobly decided that
he would do everybody's washing for them at the lodge.
And he went around and he picked up all the students washing you see,
gathered it all together, all together.
I went out in the laundry and I saw this great tub, you know, with all this washing in together.
And it was as black as the ace of spades.
And I looked at him and I said, well I'm jolly glad my washing's not in there.
And he said, well I'm glad mine's not in there either.
Inefficient in Christ's efficiency.
But is that word infuse that I want you to think about?
It's a good word because it sums up something in our lives.
That plays a very important part.
You know very soon we're going to have that cup of tea.
I'm keeping an eye on the watch because they're very strict here.
You get very grumpy if you go over time you see.
So I'm really keeping an eye on that time and anyway you want that cup of tea.
In this business of Christ infusing strength into me,
it's the word that's used of tea.
When the tea meets the boiling water it infuses.
It changes the colour of the water, doesn't it?
It gives that water strength.
It gives it a bit of kick.
It changes its taste.
I certainly wouldn't have thanked Dorothy this morning if she brought me a cup of hot water.
Wouldn't have done anything for me. I've got to have my cup of tea.
And so when you make that cup of tea a hundred times each day as you do,
just think about that very principle that Paul's outlined here.
Of the tea, as it were, getting involved with the water
and gaining that strength.
Bringing about that change in the water.
It's a crude illustration but it serves to remind us
that tea, if you like, is Christ and we're the boiling water.
The boiling water could never ever pretend to be tea.
Never would be.
In the same way as Christ,
He can't just be my example.
I can't look at scripture and say, well God perseveres, therefore I must persevere.
That would just be perspiration. That wouldn't be perseverance.
And so the Christ of our life is waiting to infuse inner strength into our minds.
The very area, if you like, where so many of the spiritual battles take place.
And then in our emotional lives.
And as I've said, we're emotional beings and our emotions can play havoc with us.
And then into the area of our wills.
The strength.
When I say, well God you know I can't, I can't do that, that and that.
And then when I say, yes but God you can and you live in me.
And then I hand it over to Him in that way.
Then that, if you like, that infusion takes place in my life.
He always does what He promises to do.
It may take time, like the cup of tea, you've got to give it time to brew.
It may take time. There's nothing magical or instant about such a prayer.
It's no good me coming to Him with the magic formula, God I can't, you can, it's over to you, thank you very much.
Because there are so many complexes within my own life that He has to sort out.
There's so much that He longs to say to you and to me when we do come to Him and give Him a chance to speak.
Because as women we like to do all the talking, even in our times of prayer.
It's more talking than listening invariably.
And Paul says as a result of this, he said, I've learned the secret of facing every situation.
Inflation, deflation, happiness, sorrow, love, hate, whatever it is.
We have rather a gorgeous couple of neighbours live opposite to us and the wife recently has come to know Christ.
And we said to her husband the other day when he was on his own, what about you?
And he just said, what a difference he'd seen in his wife.
So I can't get over the change in her, he'd very quietly noticed without a saying terribly much at all
this terrific change that Christ had brought in her life.
How she'd learned, he said, you know it's amazing we've got this and this and this problem in our home at the moment
and she really she staggers me.
You could see that change that Christ and really Christ could bring about.
That she had learned the secret of facing every situation in Christ, however difficult.
Paul in Philippians 3 talks about the Christian life as a race
and it takes perseverance doesn't it to complete a race.
And I couldn't help thinking you know when I thought about the whole concept of the Christian life being a race
and in point of fact it's an obstacle race.
Remember when you were at school and you took part in an obstacle race?
There are all kinds of obstacles away ahead.
If we knew what was before us we'd probably paint on the spot.
And it's no good sitting on the sidelines if you're involved in a race.
You've got to keep taking part, you've got to keep on keeping on.
Many of us for quite a long time have sat on the sidelines perhaps when it comes to sharing our faith with others
say when did you last lead someone else to Christ?
Oh you say I couldn't do it, it wouldn't work. I mean it's alright for them up there on the platform.
It's part of the life of Christ within us that He will lead others to Himself.
And of course it will never work if we do it.
But you know it always does.
I always think every time you know if I'm sitting down with somebody and praying with them
that they might find Christ in their life, oh He'll never come in, my eyes and He always has.
Because it's His work, it's His doing, it's His business, it's not mine, but in my own business.
It's His business entirely.
And I know how scared I was when I was first literally thrown into a situation where I had no alternative
but to lead that person to Christ.
And after that I got a little booklet on how to, how a person could receive Christ into their life
and at the back of my Bible I wrote down the prayer that was in that booklet and I thought now
if I do have another opportunity to lead someone to Christ I've got the prayer written out.
I've got two eyes, I'll keep one open and the other one closed. God's given me two eyes.
And you know as amateur as that
God used that situation and I knew it wasn't me, it could only be Him.
So you know we're involved in this race so let's stop sitting on the sideline.
Let's present the committee with a big problem next year of four thousand women to accommodate at Stanwell Tops.
Let's give them a bit of a problem next year.
Each of you just bring one along, one woman whom you've led to Christ during the year.
What fun that would be.
No good cutting off the corners if we're involved in that race and many of us want to do that.
You know I long for the shortcuts, I'm always looking for shortcuts, I'm that kind of person.
But when it comes to spiritual things there are no shortcuts.
There's no shortcut to instant sanctification.
It's going to take me a lifetime to discover all that I have in Christ.
I don't discover it all instantly, there's no such thing in the Christian life as instant perfection.
But it's certainly an obstacle race and it's only as we have to tackle each of those obstacles
that we begin to know what life is all about.
You know when you've suffered in your life and you've been through this and you've been through that
you can sit down with somebody else and you can say well look I know exactly how you feel.
And you can really get down to it.
But were there not these problems and these difficulties within our lives
what would we have to say to the world outside?
They'd say well life for the Christian is just a bed of roses, it's all so easy for them.
They never have problems, they never have difficulties.
God doesn't wrap us up in carton wool until we get to heaven.
He puts His people through it.
That certainly comes through very very clearly in that epistle of Peter.
And you know from what I've said the word perseverance in point of fact only comes once in scripture
and it comes in Ephesians 6 verse 18.
And Paul says pray at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication
to that end keep alert and watch with strong purpose and perseverance
making supplication for all the saints.
Pray at all times. You say well I'm not quite a praying person really.
Not really made of that sort of stuff.
What does it mean in simple terms in your life and mine?
It means that I'm going to work at moment by moment
not just handing a whole day over to Him
but moment by moment handing a situation over to Him
and saying well God what are you going to do here?
Having fellowship with Him, learning from Him
admitting that there are so many things in my life that I can't handle.
Maybe my tongue. It may be a weight problem. Even that.
You know we Christians we look down our noses at others who smoke.
Even that. Even if it's a weight problem in our life it's something that we've got to persevere at.
And that verse about praying at all times is enveloped in the warfare
that the Christian has to go through.
Put on the whole armour of God comes up in verse 10
because we're involved in a spiritual battle so don't expect it to be easy.
Warfare is never easy.
Put on the whole armour of God.
As women today not many of us wear armour.
We wear pantyhose don't we?
But anyway go through that checklist
and just see whether you've got every item of armour on
that you're going to need to face the battle that's ahead.
You can have a marvellous time can't you if you know you're on the winning side
or you know you're going to win a race.
And it's an incredible thought that the One who lives within
He is the overcomer. He is the victor.
He is the One who can do what we can't do and that's why He's within us.
That's why He rose again from the dead.
That's why we have the power of His Holy Spirit.
If you thought you could manage you wouldn't need Him.
Just carry on and manage.
And some people do manage better than others.
I can look at many of my friends and I can say well you know for her
she's made of the right stuff. She can manage.
She is a religious sort of person. I'm not.
She can manage.
If you're not that kind of person you know very often
you have a greater advantage because you've got no alternative
but to lean and depend upon Him. No alternative at all
because you know of yourself. You're a complete dead loss.
An interesting exercise sometime would be to study the prayers of Paul
because the way he prayed was always so different
from the way we pray. You know God do this, God do that, God do the other and so on.
And in that pistol of Ephesians and I'll just finish with this thought.
In chapter 1 verse 16 Paul says,
I do not cease to give thanks for you. When I pray for you I give thanks for you.
Think about some particular person in your life whom you regard as a great big problem.
To be able to say instead of saying God do this, God do that, God do the other.
To be able to say well thank you Lord for all that you are doing in that person's life
that I can't even see, don't even know about.
I know when I stopped begging on the back door of heaven for my own parents
that they might come to know Christ and every time I went to see them
I'd go and I'd think well they'd be that much further ahead this time
because I prayed so hard for them and it seemed as if they were a thousand miles away.
And then when I started to pray well God thank you for all you're doing behind the scenes that I don't know about.
And then when things did seem to get worse,
I'd say well thank you God you still know all about this, you've got your agents everywhere.
And to my high delight you know my father would come home having met a man at the bus stop
who shared Christ with him and it meant something to him.
Well thank you Lord this is something I really didn't know about. Placing full confidence upon him.
He says be as faithful as he who calls you and we'll put in brackets to persevere, keep on keeping on.
And then that verse finishes up with because he will do it.
Having made a demand upon our life this morning to persevere in this area, in that area and so on
is not a case of our gritting our teeth and grinning and bearing it and so on.
But the very one who makes this demand upon us is the very one who always fulfills his demand
if we come to him and give him permission. Thank you very much.