Peak of the Week: Persist – Part 3 of 4

Four Attributes We Must Cultivate

Persist definition: “continue firmly or obstinately in an opinion or a course of action despite difficulty, opposition, or failure.”

“I wouldn’t want to live without ambition. Actually, I wouldn’t be able to live without it. Ambition is what keeps us at it. It rouses us from slumber, pushes us out the door, gets us reaching beyond ourselves. It calls us to sacrifice and risk-taking. Ambition is what keeps us in the fight or in the race when everything in us wants to quit.” — Mark Buchanan, Leadership Journal, 2010

Ambition can be a good word or a bad word for Christians. Scripture warns us often against “selfish ambition.”

Positively, Paul said in Romans 15:20 NKJV: And so I have made it my aim to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man’s foundation.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 NKJV: Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. 25 and everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. 26 Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. 27 but I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

Four Attributes We Must Cultivate

1. WE NEED A_____________________________.
   • 1 Corinthians 9:24
   • Philippians 3:14 NKJV I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
   • 2 Timothy 4:7 NKJV I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
   • Acts 14:20 NKJV However, when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and went into the city. And the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.
2. WE MUST HAVE B_______________________.
   • He said down at verse 26: “Therefore, I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man
     beating the air.”
   • As you look at your life – what’s your aim? How is your godly ambition channeled – in what direction is it channeled?
   • Paul said, “I do not run like a man running aimlessly…”
   • Our life mission is to spend eternity with God and to take as many people with us as possible!
3. WE NEED C____________________________.
   • 1 Corinthians 9:27
   • Luke 11:9 NKJV “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”
   • Determined people find a way, long after others have quit looking, and indeed have stopped working.
4. WE NEED D______________________________
   1. 1 Corinthians 9:25
   2. Bradley Nassif, a professor of biblical and theological studies at North Park University in Chicago, wrote:
      “Grace is opposed to merit, but it is not opposed to effort.”
   3. In other words, we’re not going to be saved by our merit – by earning our salvation, but to be useful to God, to persist in our faith – takes a determined effort.

QUESTIONS & EXERCISES
For Daily Devotionals or Bible Study Group

1. What are things that challenge your persistence or weaken your resolve? How does your faith in Christ push back against these challenges?
2. Do you have a positive or negative view of the word “ambition?” Why? How do you differentiate between selfish ambition, which the Bible often condemns, and godly ambition? How can we demonstrate selfish ambition even in the context of the Church? Take a few moments and write out your godly ambitions?
3. How would you describe what drove Paul’s life and ministry? How do you think he maintained such drive? Why does Paul often resort to the metaphor of an athlete to describe his drive? What are some reasons that this is a good metaphor for all of us?
4. Paul said that he didn’t run “aimlessly.” What would you say was his aim? When you think about your life’s direction, how would you describe your life’s aim to someone? Your Church’s aim?
5. What are some of the disciplines each of us needs in our life to ensure that we remain “in strict training?” How and when do you incorporate these into your life? If you were advising someone else about

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