Colossians: Endurance and Patience

These are two traits every Christian desperately needs and Paul prayed for himself and others in Colossians. They are the very traits our culture seems unable to produce... in fact it produces the opposite.

Colossians 1:1-12

1. Endurance and Patience, in the context of persecution, trials, the spiritual battle and the second coming:
   • Matthew 10:22
   • Luke 21:19
   • Romans 2:7
   • 2 Timothy 2:12
   • Hebrews 10:36
   • James 5:7-11
   • Revelation 14:11-13
2. These are qualities we are to desire and get:
   • 1 Timothy 6:11
   • Titus 2:2
   • Romans 12:12
   • 1 Corinthians 13:4,7
3. Why we need these:
   • 2 Timothy 2:10
   • 1 Thessalonians 5:14
   • Luke 8:13-15
4. How to get them:
   1. Pray: Colossians 1:11
   2. Know your Hope:
      • Colossians 1:4-5
      • Romans 8:25
      • 1 Thessalonians 1:3
   3. Trials:
      • Romans 5:3-4
      • James 1:3-4
   4. The Bible: Romans 15:4-5
   5. Jesus’ example: Hebrews 12:1-4

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• How were endurance and patience described in the sermon?
• Why is our culture so bad at helping us develop these traits?
• Why does the Bible say these are so important?
• How can we get them?
• Why are trials so important in all of this?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Hebrews: Encouragements

Looking to Jesus as we press on in our pilgrimage to heaven, overcoming discouragement and the weariness of trials that seem to never end, getting to heaven and the joy of that place; these are some of the practical encouragements that God gives us in the passage we will study in Hebrews. Then we will consider why God allows trials to come into our lives... and we will see that it is the love of the Father that does it!!

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Hebrews 12:1-11

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Luke: Jesus Said It, So What Will You Do?

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Luke 21:5-38
Matthew 24:3
2 Thessalonians 1:6-10

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Luke: Like a Stubborn Mule

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Luke 11:5-10,18:1-8
James 1:2-4,5:10-11
Romans 5:3-4,8:25
Mark 13:13
2 Thessalonians 1:4
Hebrews 10:35-36,12:1

We know how uncommon and difficult a virtue is persistence in prayer; and in this our unbelief betrays itself, for unless our first requests are answered, we at once give up hope and also the practice of prayer.

In the parable Christ introduces a widow who gets what she wants from an unfair and cruel judge because she did not stop asking. The point of it is that God does not help His people immediately because in a sense He wants them to tire themselves out with praying.

How then shall the prayers of believers be unfruitful if only they persist in them? Therefore if we are weakened by boredom, if when we have done a little we give up, or if our fervor in prayer languishes because God seems to have deaf ears, let us still be convinced that success will be assured even if it is not yet seen. And in this confidence let us so wrestle against our impatience that a longer delay does not break our perseverance in prayer. John Calvin

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA