What is a very important quality necessary for Christian leadership? What is a most essential quality for success in ministry? Perhaps you’ll say it is intelligence. No. Perhaps you’ll say it is hard work. I know that Korean people are some of the hard working people in the world, but no, the essential quality is not hard work. Perhaps it is education at Wheaton College or wherever God has led you. No it is not education. Perhaps it is our prayer life. And I realized who I am speaking to when I mentioned the word prayer. For the Korean church teaches the whole world about prayer. But no, not even prayer as the essential quality. I wonder what it is.
Listen to the word of God in Revelation 3 starting in verse 8 then 10 and 11.
8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name
10 Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth.
11 I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.
The church in Philadelphia reminds me of Korean church. The text starts by saying 'I know your good works.' I know your good works. The church of Korea has sent out over 23,000 missionaries to the world, to 169 nations. only the United States has sent out more missionaries than the Korean church worldwide.
I know of your prayer. At 5:30 prayer meeting in the morning, I went to one of them once. We prayed all night long. I fell asleep but my Korean brothers and sisters kept praying. “Yes I know your great works and I know of your sacrifices for the gospel”.
The text also says that 'I know that you have little power' that the church has. There are times that you feel that you have so little to really give and maybe you wonder if your work is in vain. But to the church in Philadelphia Jesus says, “You have kept the word”. “You have kept the word and you have not denied my name”. This reminds me of you (Korean church). We give thanks to God. But please notice what happens in verse 10, an interesting thing. We wonder what word it is the church has kept.
When I first studied the passage I thought it meant, the whole scripture but verse ten hones in like a knife. "You have kept my word that endurance", endurance, endurance. This is the word they have kept that has given them the strength, endurance. In the original language of the New Testament the word, endurance means a slow steady moving that nothing can stop. Slow, continual, but it can’t be stopped. This is the essential quality for the leadership, my friends, Endurance!
Many years ago I run my first marathon. I was really silly to do this. It was in Chicago. There were 30,000 runners, there are a million spectators and I train all spring and summer and then the day came. I looked all the other runners I know many of them are far better than I was especially the Kenyans in Africa. Oh they are so little, they are so fast. The race started, we took off. We were running mile 1, mile 5, mile 10, I feel really good. When I got to my own mile 10, I was feeling really good that I wondered perhaps I can catch the Kenyans. I kept running and running people were cheering form the side and then we got to mile 13, the half-way point. Suddenly my legs said, "Stop this” “What are you doing to us”. And then the half-way point they put a big clock across the top and it told you what your time was for the first half and I looked at my time and then I felt very discouraged because I realized the Kenyans have just finished the race.
We kept running and then a prophet stepped out of the crowd. He was a young man, and then he said this prophetic word. “You have a long way to go.” That didn’t help. I was only half way done but my body said it was done.
If you have not experienced that in ministry, you will. Those of you that are getting a little older, the passion that gave you strength that you have in the ministry will not sustain you in the second half. Endurance is required. We don’t know what the challenges were for the church of Philadelphia but the text was somewhat hidden at that point. But I know some of the afflictions that I have faced and then you face.
The apostle Paul talks about the word afflictions. We have afflictions in our lives and they wear us down and they make us weary. Family issues, health issues, finance issues, we have afflictions in our ministries, whether we are pastor in the United State, a mission leader somewhere in the world, mission throughout the world, there are a lot of afflictions. Sometimes our problems are not that those who do not know Jesus, they are co-worker challenges, cultural challenges, and sometimes even our love for Jesus begins to get tired.
Here the word from the church of Philadelphia, their greatest attribute is their endurance. It is not only afflictions that wear us down, it is our sin. Someone has said that character is who I am when no one sees. Sometimes I feel that my life is one where I am on fire for God and then at the very next minute, sin is crouching at my door. We battle sin our whole lives. When you are 18 when you are 38 when you’re a 100, we battle against sin and it makes us weary. And then there are the temptations of our world. I must tell you something that makes me sad. The Korean Church is the fastest Korean church in the 20st century but it is not in the 21st century.
I talked to my friend Chandler(translator) about this, I said, “What is happening? And he said and I think he is correct, the temptation in our world. I often say to my people in my own nation that we are "the third soil" people. The parable of the soils, in the third soil, Jesus says one is worries; two is pleasure, and 3rd, the desire for things. Kill the fruit that is growing.
The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear,
but as they go on their way, they are choked by life's worries,
riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. Luke 8:14
As the standard of living increases for Korean people, you are in the same danger that all of us are in affluence societies. Afflictions, sins, and affluence makes our legs tired.
I asked myself the question how did they endure? Wouldn’t it be a great thing that Jesus says to you, “You have endured”, Amen, to the end to the finish line.
Back to my marathon race Mile15, 16, 17 I’m running slower now but I continued running. Many people have fallen to the way it looks like a war zone. People laying in the street, sitting on the sidewalk and moarning OHH! OHH! Sometimes ministry feels like that. How do we endure? Well I can just give you three things that I did in my marathon. They really helped and I'm 60 years old now and these things still helped me as well.
I started in professional ministry at age 18, it is a marathon. Here is the first thing I did on the run. I realized I should probably talked to God about my problem instead of looking at all the people, instead of saying I’m going to fall down here pretty soon. I just prayed to God. When you do a hard athletic endeavor all the blood moves away from your brain into the parts of your body necessary. So I wasn’t thinking clearly anymore and rather than praying this is what I had started doing, I had started singing a silly children song, “I’ve been working on the rail road all the live long day. I’ve been working… “ I wasn’t thinking very clearly then the Lord says to me, “Yoo-hoo.. I’m here” then I began just speaking to God in my mind.
A wonderful Christian writer by the name of Annie Dillard says there are only two prayers really. The first prayer is Help! Help! Help! And the second prayer is Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Help. Help, help, help and thank, you thank you, thank you.
My brothers and sisters I am a child learning prayer from you. But I have learned this, when life gets hard and I’m willing, ready to give up, I need to just say, “Thank you, thank you thank you God. Thanksgiving prayer and praising prayer heal us. When you wake in the morning, when you sleep at night think of at least five things that God has done for you that day and say thank you, thank you, thank you. Like a life preserver in the ocean, thanks giving time with God keeps us floating.
I think I have this problem. Often times my prayers are almost all of intercession and too little thanks giving and praise. Let us enter gates with thanksgiving and its courts with prayers. So the first thing I did as I was running, I said help, help, help, and thank you, thank you, thank you.
Here is the second thing that I did I stopped singing about the rail road and I went to Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me”. And I found that God’s words fit well in my running and I put a melody to them. “I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me”… And I kept singing over and over and over again as I step over all the people falling down. I can do all things. No I can’t do anything. Apart from Christ there is no good in me but in Christ, in Christ I can do all things. Holy Spirit fillㄴ us.
The second thing is the filling of the Holy Spirit. Apart from the Holy Spirit we will grow weary and give up. And the way that we are apart from the Holy Spirit is when we say I can’t God, I can’t. I can’t do it, I can’t make it. You can fill me Holy Spirit. If you do not learn the dynamic of the Holy Spirit in faith you will grow weary.
And then the final thing I did, I felt an essential need from people. I was praying, I was asking God too give me His Holy Spirit's strength but I just needed to touch somebody. I needed human touch. And so as the crowds were lining the street, I went close to them and they are cheering us on. And I would just reach out my hand and some of these strangers are touching me and I felt their strength. They are saying, “You can do it Lon” and you know how they knew my name? It’s because I put it on my shirt.
You can do it Lon! I needed others to keep me going. So the last thing that I will say to you my brothers and sisters how does us endure? We endure when we have others around us who love us and believe in us and help us when we are ready to quit. They encourage us and we encourage them. I have 8 men in the United States that are my soul friends. I call them my elite eight and I am one of them as well. I am never alone. When I’m ready to give up, Peter says, “No Lon I’m praying for you." When I want to quit Dennis from California calls me out of the blue and he says, “What is going on, God is telling me to pray for you.
Mile 24, 25, 26 I made it to the end.
And my precious brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, I want you to endure in the race of life. Thanksgiving prayer, the filling of the Holy Spirit, and soul friends.
Let me close with this text from Hebrews 12:1-3. Listen to the three uses of the word endure.
“1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,
2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
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