Don't Give Up!

Many pastors become discouraged and dropout.
Paul addressed this problem when he wrote:
"Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." (Galatians 6:9)

Every Christian worker must contend with the weariness that Paul talked about.
It is never easy to work with volunteer help or to operate on freewill offerings.
It is always difficult to try to arouse a sleeping church -- those who are not really committed to God.
It is a draining responsibility to deal with immature saints, and to contend with Satan at the same time.

Not all fields give the same yield.

Some Christian workers have to work in the most discouraging of circumstances.
They are striving to labor with dead congregations that meet in inadequate buildings
located in depressed neighborhoods.
When that's the case, it is difficult to keep going.

It may be that you are in one of those barren situations.
And you are thinking about giving up - about quitting.
Every pastor may feel like that at times.

But don't give up! Don't quit!

We often have to go through hard and discouraging circumstances.
The devil doesn't bother people or churches who are asleep on the job.
But, when we undertake a great work for the Lord,
the devil tries to defeat us by outside opposition or inward discouragement.

This kind of discouragement and the desire to give up are not new.
They lie behind the words of the apostle Paul when he wrote,
"For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order things that are wanting,
and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee." (Titus 1:5)

The Book of Titus has been called a letter to a discouraged pastor.
Paul had sent Titus to Crete on a special assignment to strengthen the churches.
But the work in Crete was hard, and the people were difficult, if not impossible, to work with.

A poet of Paul's day, named Epimenides, said that all Cretans were liars, wicked brutes and lazy gluttons. (Titus 1:12)
The apostle Paul agreed with this assessment.

Even though Titus was a tough preacher, he had grown weary and discouraged in Crete and wanted to quit.
Some think Titus had written to Paul requesting a new assignment to an easier place.

But, Paul refused the request, and wrote back to Titus.
He told Titus that the reasons why he wanted to quit were the very reasons
he was assigned to Crete in the first place.
Crete was a hard place, and God needed a good man there.
Paul's advice to Titus was to stay in Crete and do the work God had placed him there to do.

What Or Where Is Your Crete?

Geographically, Crete is an island in the Mediterranean Sea.

• But, it is symbolic of any place or any thing that you would like to get away from.
  
• It represents a hard place, a difficult situation, and an impossible people.
  
• It may be a place of suffering, opposition, and of sorrow.
  
• We all have our Cretes, no matter who we are.

1. He leaves us in Crete because he loves Crete.
   
2. He leaves to us in Crete to develop us.
   
3. He leaves us in Crete so we can be His instruments in redemption.

• He left Titus there, not in order to punish him, but to perfect him.
• It was not to make him miserable, but to make him mature.
• God's goal for our lives is not to make us comfortable,
  but to make us conform to the image of His Son, Jesus Christ.
• God is more concerned about our character than about our comfort.

How He hampers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!
How he bends but never breaks,
When His good he undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And with every purpose fuses him,
By every act induces him;
To try His splendor out --
God knows what He's about!"

I have lived long enough to thank God for my trials and my troubles.
What seems at times to be been a benediction, with God's help can become the invocation.
What can seem to be the worse thing, can turn out to be the best thing.

So don't give up!

God is making you into the kind of person He wants you to be.
He may be preparing you for greater usefulness in His kingdom.

Don't give up on that discouraging situation.
Often times, it takes a hard place and difficult people to make us into the kind of persons God wants us to be.

God Wants To Use Us!

Finally, God left Titus in Crete because he wanted to use Titus as an instrument to change the world.

Paul told Titus that he was left in Crete to "To set in order" things that were wanting. (Titus 1:5)

The term, set in order, is a medical term that means "to set in the joint."
It describes what a doctor does when you go to him with a broken bone.
Because the parts of the bone are out of the right relationship with one another,
the doctor must pull them back into place, so they can heal properly,
and the limb can be useful once again.
Setting a bone back in place is very painful and unpleasant, but it is a necessary part of healing.

That is part of what God has called us to do.

When we open the doors of our church, it is like opening the doors of a hospital emergency room.
The wounded, the hurting, the bruised and bleeding come in a steady flow.
And I am glad they do!

It is part of our calling to help put broken, shattered lives back together again.
It is difficult, and sometimes unpleasant work, but God has called us to do it, and we must be faithful to our God.

The people of Crete were out of joint with God and out of joint with one another.

• God sent Titus to Crete to be a spiritual bone specialist.
• He was not sent to Crete for his comfort and ease.
• He was not sent there for his own professional advancement.
• He was sent there to set things in order in the churches.