Push & Hush

What is the thing that irritates you the most? Why?

Have you ever set a goal and actually accomplished it?

Have you ever set a goal but did not accomplish it?

What do you think are the reasons we do not accomplish our goals?

I think we can boil it down to the lack of “perseverance”

What does Perseverance mean?

Merriam Webster: continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition

Cambridge Dictionary: continued effort to do or achieve something, even when this is difficult or takes a long time

So perseverance is the continued effort to do or achieve something despite how difficult it will be. Despite if there is failure. Regardless of opposition. And no matter how long it takes.

At the start of class I asked you what irritates you. Well, when it comes to the goals that we set and we don’t reach them chances are we get mad, irritated, and blame everyone and everything external in our life.

It’s always something or someone else fault.

But more times than nought the first person we need to get irritated at is our self for lack of perseverance.

We will set a goal and not do it because it will take to long

We will set a goal and not do it because it gets hard

We will set a goal and won’t even start, Why? Because it pulls us out of the comfort of our lazy routines.

But your routine is the casket where your future achievements are dying in because you want to stay comfortable

Let me put it like this… You’ve set the Goal… But you’ve let life set the terms

News flash you will not be 16, 15, 14 forever.

You are stuck in a moment in time not realizing life is passing you buy and your living in a life vest that you are going to out grow someday.

What you do right now affects not just the next few minutes of your life but has a ripple effect into your life years down the line.

Do not take faith in God lightly in your teenage years. Develop it now because you will certainly need to lean on it later.

This is what you need to do when it comes to your lack of perseverance

Stop thinking less of yourself when the Lord thinks more of you.

Lets put Book, Chapter, and Verse on It:

English Standard Version Chapter 1

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Every one repeat after me:

The Testing Is Producing

I peaked in the class last Saturday and Ms. D had you guys writing out what looked to be goals and aspirations. Some of you wrote about your grades in school and trying out for sports. Some of you had graduation goals. Others wanted to get a job and save money for a car. Others even had making enough money to move out the house. A few of you put growing your relationship with the Lord.

The purpose of our lesson is for you to know that whatever you have set your mind to do this year it will be tested.

Yes, your intentions for doing it will be tested. Your skills and talent will be driven beyond it’s current capabilities. Your daily effort will be challenged to the point of tired. Your faith will be challenged to cause you to doubt.

But Notice what the text says in verse 3 “… the testing of your faith produces steadfastness [perseverance].

To produce something means that what ever is happening on the inside will eventually be shown to the public on the outside.

It is the process that occurs between an idea and the results of that idea

A car manufacturing company produces cars.

All the parts are put together inside the factory

Once the car is put together it is tested to ensure that it can persevere in the hands of those who will be driving it

When they know that the car is safe to drive they put it our on the market.

Before you run out there get in the Factory of the Lord. Let him test you and produce you in his factory

There is some development that needs to happen in each of you. You need to be matured in certain areas of your life.

And that development and that maturity has to be done through your life being tested.

You don’t know how much you’ve matured until you have to react to what has defeated you in the past

You will be tested: When this happens say to yourself and to the test/trial “The Testing is Producing”.

Always remember that Results you want needs come from the testing not the handout.

The handout is only to prepare you for the test.

Open book and/or open handout test don’t exist in life!

Let’s put a verse with this:

Romans 5:3–5 ESV

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us

We know that the testing of our faith produces perseverance. But if we are honest often testing and trials brings times and moments of suffering.

In other words it doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t look good, and it doesn’t seem like you will make it through

But Paul tells us that the suffering we go through produces the following

Endurance- the ability to go the distance

Character- value and proof that something is genuine

Hope - an expectation of something beyond yourself

You are no longer looking at life from where you are. You are looking at life from where you are going

When we allow our lives to be produced in the Factory of the Lord there will be a hope in your life that will do more for you than you can ever imagine.

It will give you a hope in a future beyond just careers and material things

It will give you a peace that surpasses all understanding

It will give you a love that no human relationship can provide

It will give you a joy that no tough circumstance can snatch away

Some of you sitting her don’t need any of the things you wrote down last week to come true until you fall into the hands of the Lord and let him produce you in his Factory.

So with that said this is what I want to challenge each of you to do for 2026: And this is our Theme for 2026.

Get in the Lord’s Factory and let him produce you. But while he is producing you the only thing we are going to do is:

PUSH & HUSH

The fist thing we are going to do is PUSH. What does it mean to PUSH

PRAY UNTIL SANCTIFICATION HOLDS

Sanctification is the process of the Lord not you. It is how he develops us through his Holy Spirit. The end result is a righteous life before the Lord shaped and molded in His glory and not your own.

All you need to do in this is to pray and read your scripture with the intention of letting the Lord produce you.

Prayer:

1 Thessalonians 5:16–17 ESV

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing,

Colossians 4:2 ESV

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

Scripture Reading:

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

2 Timothy 2:15 ESV

Study to show yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

Why is this important?

1 Peter 5:8 ESV

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

The enemy is coming to put your faith to the test is coming so you need to get into your devotional!

This is your PUSH Prayer for 2026

Serenity Prayer: Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

HUSTLE UNTIL SANCTIFICATION HOLDS

This is where you take what you’ve read and prayed about in your daily devotion and you entrust it to God to produce it in your life.

James 1:22 ESV

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

Matthew 7:24–27 ESV

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

Remember: when you face the trial & testing you speak back to it “The testing is producing”.

Conclusion: What do need the Lord to produce perseverance for in your life right now

So what is the conclusion to the matter?

We have to first start with Confession.

[The Confession Activity]