Jeremy Hoover

We progress in our faith through perseverance. We each face trials, challenges, and uncertainty. We grow, not by giving up, but by facing these things head on through faith. We persevere through them.

Introduction: What do you think about when you think about perseverance?

• Me: persevering through 8 long months without LOST
• Others (more seriously)
• persevering through uncertainty (unknown job statuses)
• persevering through a bad start (is this really God's work if it stalled out? stopping food pantries and clothing banks because of a bad start, etc.)
• persevering through trial (Haiti earthquake survivors)

1. Joseph persevered through uncertainty. Genesis 39:20.

• Joseph faced numerous trials that created uncertainty: tossed in a well; sold into slavery; working in a strange land; false accusations; tossed into jail; forgotten in jail; negotiating Egyptian politics as a ruler.
• He recognized through all this uncertainty that God meant it for good.
• Perseverance enables us know certainty even during uncertainty. Genesis 50:20.
  

2. Moses persevered through a bad start. Exodus 5:6-7.

• When Moses first challenged Pharaoh, Pharaoh responded by making the work harder for the Jews.
• When Moses finally freed the people, they ended up wandering in a desert for 40 years before they received the promised land.
• Perseverance enables us to finish strong.
  

3. James teaches us to persevere through trials. James 1:2-4.

• James knew that we all face different things that test our faith.
• We only grow by facing these tests head on and persevering through them.
• Perseverance enables us to mature in faith and become complete.
  

Application

• We progress through perseverance
• Where are you?--uncertainty, bad start, trials?
  
• How do you persevere? Focus not on the trial but on what is being done in you. [counter-intuitive]
• Do not focus on the uncertainty, the slow start, or the trial. Focus on what God is doing in you.

Learn from Joseph, Moses, and James how to persevere through uncertainty, a slow start, and trials.

Not everything is as it seems. Sometimes, there are deeper spiritual realities at work beneath the surface of what we see. We need to trust God, remain faithful, and persevere through challenges and trials.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finis its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything" (James 1:2-4, TNIV).

Improper bible reading gives up on the bible too easily, focuses too much on acquiring knowledge, and promotes pride. Proper bible reading, on the other hand, transforms you: it leads to worship, good works, and stronger faith. Be transformed by reading the bible, making a plan to minister, and taking action.

Yesterday we tried a social media experiment. We've been using our Facebook fan page and Twitter account mainly for distributing information. For Sunday worship, we tried to create a backchannel for discussing the sermon, both live and after the worship event. This is how we did it:

1. I sent out a message on Facebook to church members, asking them to access our Fan Page after worship and leave a comment, question, or insight about our worship.

2. On Twitter, I asked our tweeting church members to live-tweet the sermon, and to use a church-centered hashtag (#hrcc) at the end of their tweets. This means that as they had an insight, question, or response to the sermon, they posted it to their Twitter account as the sermon was being preached.

3. In connection with this, I sent out two introductory tweets from the church account. The first was a summary sentence for the sermon and a link to my sermon outline online. The second tweet was a link to the study notes I provided online.

4. During the sermon, one church member tweeted the main points of my sermon along with a link to the online outline and the church's hashtag (#hrcc).

5. After the sermon, I went back to Twitter, searched the #hrcc hashtag, and responded to the tweets so we could continue our dialogue. (You can read these tweets for yourself by going to Twitter Search and entering #hrcc.)

6. On Facebook, I read some replies that came through the messaging system as well as the comments that were placed on our Fan Page. I responded to these, again in an effort to keep the dialogue going.

We don't have a high percentage of members on Facebook, and even less are on Twitter. I'm still happy with our experiment and I plan to keep it up. I think it helped people engage the material better and it will facilitate community outside the weekly worship as we create a backchannel through which we can continue talking and tweeting with each other about God's word and its impact in our lives.

For those who were involved, what was your opinion? What feedback do you have? If you're just reading this, what questions do you have?