Welcome to
Zion Bread of Life Christian Church

Sunday, 8th September 2024

Ps Kathy Poon 

Every time when theres a battle, there’s a promotion. How can we enter the eternal realm to receive the reward? Hebrews 12:1-3 teaches us that to preserver to the end is very important.

Philippians 3:13-14

2 Timothy 4:7

Paul looked back at his whole life, he saw it like a race, a marathon. And in this race we must run with endurance, we all want to run fast, we all want to experience victory after victory, but the word endurance is very hard for us to accept. When we cannot see the path in front of us, when troubles come against us, when rejections come again and again… our hearts will grow weary, and we will start fall behind. What is the essence of this path of faith? It’s a long battle, of course it’s good we can run fast to reach the goal. The challenge is to persevere until the end.

1. Understand that you are not alone

Hebrews 12:1 told us that we are surrounded by all the witnesses. We are not alone, everything we are experiencing right now, all the sadness, challenges, despairs… we are not the only ones experiencing them. 1 Kings 19:4 talks about Elijah wanting to die because he felt alone. He was in darkness and hopelessness. Jesus also experienced darkness before He went on the cross. He was so sorrowful even to death. All the saints and believers of generations experienced difficulties and challenges in the path of faith. We must know that we are not alone. In the same way, they also witnessed to us how God has been faithful to the end and led them to victory. Hebrews 11 encourages us to keep on running and never give up.

Today by God’s grace, we will also win the victory. In Jesus Christ we are not alone, we have the cloud of witnesses, and we have Jesus Christ Himself.

1. Remove the Obstacles in your Heart

A lot of times it’s never about the environment that troubles us, it’s about our hearts. Our hearts stop us following God, so what are some obstacles in our hearts that stop us following God?

• A Disheartened Spirit – when we have an expectation, we pray, but challenges come one after another, we become frustrated and we lose hope.
• A Weary Spirit – a spirit of burnout comes when we face challenges again and again, we get tired and weary, when we feel we’ve given everything but things don’t turn out to be as we expected.
• A Spirit of Fear – a lot of people before they step out, they begin to fear, especially when they experienced failures in the past; when our environment is full of setbacks and disabilities, we will begin to fear and stop going forward.

Hebrews 11:1 teaches us what faith is. It’s in the Father that we believe. Hebrews 12:1-2 teaches us to look upon Jesus. He will finish the work He started in our lives. God has already started this work and He will always finish it. But God’s timing and God’s methods are often different to what we have expected, so we must wait upon Him. It’s like the watchman waiting for dawn, darkness is difficult, but he has an assurance that the dawn will always come.