More Grit Less Quit

Gateway Franklin Church

MORE GRIT LESS QUIT

Pastor Charlie Weir

Grit is displayed as a passion and perseverance for a long-term goal. Grit is a stick-to-it position through pain and setback. A gritty person takes on a marathon mindset over a sprint approach.

The Intellectual Side of Quitting: “Do the math”

• I quit when I think that the reward of staying doesn’t match the effort to stay.

• I quit when I think the outcome has already been settled.

• I quit when I think I am out-matched.

The Emotional Side of Quitting: “Not feeling it anymore”

• I quit when I feel tired.

• I quit when I feel over-whelmed.

• I quit when I feel stuck.

You can live with more grit because…

• Your grit quotient isn’t based on who you are but who you have.

• Your grit quotient isn’t based on what you have been through but who you have been through it with!

• Your grit quotient isn’t about how strong you are but how strong God is.

Grit-Life Pattern #1 Go All in With God.

2 Chronicles 16:9 (NIV) 7 At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him: “Because you relied on the king of Aram and not on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand. 8 Were not the Cushites and Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet when you relied on the Lord, he delivered them into your hand. 9 For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war.”

God’s grit is better than our whit. Our solutions only provide temporary relief.

God is looking to give strength to those fully committed to Him. Those who have burned the ships, have no plan B, who aren’t keeping their options open on another way to live. Those who are all in, all God, all of the time!

Grit-Life Pattern #2 Live from the Inside Out not the Outside In.

2 Corinthians 4: 6-12 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.”

Paul goes onto say we are…

• Perplexed but not in despair = I don’t have an answer for what I am facing but the Christ-force inside of me is keep me from being in despair.

• Persecuted but not abandoned = I “feel” alone, I “appear” alone but I know I am not alone.

• Struck down but not destroyed = Down but not out because the resurrection power of Christ that has taken up residence inside of me will raise me up again!

The proper presupposition on which to base my life is, life is all about God and He is for Himself.

2 Corinthians 4:13-18 13 It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, 14 because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. 16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 12:9 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Grit-Life Pattern #3 Live Like There is More to Life Than This

Hebrews 11:8-16 8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore. 13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

“Grit is increased when we learn that failure is not a permanent condition.”

Grit Patterned Living

• Set your heart after God. Don’t worry about finding strength for the moment, strength will find you.

• Ask God to fill you with His presence. You might have to clean out a closet or two to make more room.

• Don’t get stuck in the hardness of the moment. Moments come and go – our life in Christ is eternal!