Don’t Give Up Now

• Sometimes I feel like the moment God  is working with me on a specific area,   that area will be attacked. I used to think that meant God wasn’t really  working there, but if you read the Scripture,   it’s very interesting how it’s worded. Paul  writes to the church and says (verse 12),   “Therefore, my dear friends, as you  have always obeyed…” This Scripture   is definitely not about me. “Always  obeyed.” No, no, no.
• I think this is   some kind of reverse psychology Paul is putting  on them, because they’re fighting and arguing. Later in the book of Philippians he  name checks two women and tells them,   “Y’all stop fighting.” That’s in chapter 4. I’m  not going to preach that this week. But he says,   “If you were able to obey not only in my presence,   but now much more in my absence…” Think  about the sadness of Paul, the apostle,   being in prison. He’s in a shipwreck. He gets on  another boat three months later. He goes to Rome.
• He’s under house arrest for two years, and he  writes four epistles…Ephesians, Colossians,   Philippians, and Philemon, the Prison Epistles.  They call them that. They were written in prison,   but we quote them in church. So, where you  are right now has tremendous potential. Even   your darkness has tremendous potential to  be harvested to bring somebody else light.
• The Bible says that God, who caused his light  to shine out of darkness, gives his Holy Spirit   into our hearts, and we have this treasure in  earthen vessels that the excellency of the power   might be of God and not of us. It’s God doing  it. It wasn’t God throwing Paul in the cell,   but it was God on the inside of Paul that caused  him to pick up a pen while he was in there.
• Because he picked up a pen while he was in there,  you and I are shouting over stuff he said today.   Somebody else needs to be shouting in five  years because you didn’t give up. Somebody   else needs to be praising God in 10 years  because you stayed the course. What you need   to keep going is in you. Say it by faith. “It’s  in me.” He said, “You have an opportunity now.