In Part 1 of this message, we detailed the importance of discovering and fulfilling God's purpose in calling and gifting individuals in the Body of Christ.

2) PERFORMANCE.

Performance demands faithfulness - faithful obedience. The most powerful and effective message we can bring is the one we live. "Preach Christ. Use words if you must." Oh, that we would allow the truth of that motto to sink deeply into the center of our beings. We can become quite good at the use of words. We can "wax eloquent" and be fervent in our presentation, skillfully using voice inflections, selecting just the right emotionally packed words, and think that's really going to change lives. The truth is, however, we have to preach Christ just by breathing, by consistently being who we are in Him, by living out who He is in us. People watch others all the time. They learn how to act and react to both positive and negative circumstances by watching how their leaders handle situations similar to their own.

There is something contagious about Christ. We can actually convey to another person a measure of His presence that resides within us through a soft touch on the shoulder, or even through a warm and friendly handshake. When we recognize it's Christ in us and not anything of ourselves, that is the hope of God - it's God's hope for glory. It's God's hope! Imagine the angels saying, "God, what hope is there for the world to ever know Your glory?" And He says, "It's My people. I have set My glory in them ("Christ in you the hope of glory" Col.1:27). My Son paid the price. As a result, I see them in Jesus and Jesus in them and that's the hope of My glory filling the whole earth (Hab.2:14). It's there - in My Bride - in My people - in My Son - in My Kingdom on the earth." What we say is very important, but how we live is far more influential.

Performance. We are not talking about play-acting or anything that is merely a façade behind which we can hide the "real me." We are talking about allowing a true transformation to take place that comes from the Holy Spirit living within (Rom.12:2). James challenges us to be "doers of the word and not hearers only" (Jas. 1:22). He qualifies the latter as being "deceived by your own selves." Paul says it this way, "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Gal.5:16).

Faithful performance of our call. In the section of scripture we call the Sermon on the Mount (Matt.5-7), Jesus lays out in detail how He expects His disciples to live. In this discourse, He addresses matters of our overt actions, our emotions, and our innermost attitudes and motivations. Toward the end of this collection of His instructions, Jesus warns about false prophets and says, "Ye shall know them by their fruits" (Mt. 7:16), and again, "by their fruits ye shall know them" (v.20). Can we legitimately extend that and aver that all of us can be known by our fruits - our faithful performance of all He has called us to do and be? Of course we can, and should.

One of the greatest compliments we can receive while going through difficult times is, "You don't smell like smoke." It would be a deep honor to hear that! "You don't wear it like an outer garment for all to notice and know how hard life's struggles have been." Certainly, we've all been in the fire! Let's allow it to burn off the ropes that bind us. And yes, we can bless God through it all! When we come out of those negative situations, we can apply a little Holy Ghost perfume and allow the people around us to enjoy the powerful aroma of His presence in our presence. We don't have to go through life's hard times gathering "sympathy cards" from everyone we encounter. What power is in that? We need to get back quickly into the fragrance of the King who called us and promised to go through it all with us (Isa.43:1-3; Deut.31:6; Ps.66:12; Ps.91:3). Andre Crouch sings, "Through it all, I've learned to trust in Jesus, I've learned to trust in God." We should recognize, however, that being in His presence does not make any of us immune from persecution, and that the hard times we go through with Him beside us are always productive.

Once we know the purpose of God and we move into the performance of our call with faithfulness, let us learn to walk in the assurance of His presence as we, at the same time, may be walking in trepidation through the fiery trials of life. This is the truth: we can be certain that God is leading us, whether or not we can see exactly where we are going at any given moment. It has to do, not with what we perceive, but with what we believe just because it is found in His Word. Assurance. And we all need to find that assurance in Him.

3) PERSECUTION.

Jeremiah 20, verse 2 says, "Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks." It is interesting to note that Pashur means "freedom." Here is the chief governor of the Temple, the Priest Pashur, and he put Jeremiah in the stocks. He publicly locked him up and took away his freedom of movement. There will be times in our lives or ministry when people have enough authority - politically or financially or in other ways - to put us in figurative stocks. Stocks are a restrictive device. While fastened in them, both hands and feet are clamped down and movement is impossible.

What can we do when we're "put in stocks?" We are still God's people and still have God's promises, but there's no place to go or we just can't get there. That situation certainly tests faith.
A good scriptural example for us would be Paul and Silas. When they were imprisoned, in literal stocks and couldn't move anything but their mouths, they sang (Acts 16:23-25).

Too often, because of our negative circumstances, or the intensity of persecution, we cease to sing. We may even stop praising God for anything. It's a challenge to praise at all in those difficult times and we may have to begin with clenched teeth. But praise we must, and we will soon discover that as we are obedient to praise God in spite of all the negatives, in spite of all the hurt, our hearts will begin to soften, our jaw muscles will relax, and we can truthfully declare, "I DO praise You, Lord. It's not You that put me here. You've allowed it, but oh Lord, the same One that allows me can deliver me. I'll be here as long as You let me stay here. And yet, I shall praise You."

I have found that sometimes, it's God who sets you on the shelf, so to speak, because you've had so much use. In fact, there's probably a little tainted thing there in you and He just sets you aside on the shelf. We never seem to understand the timing of such a hiatus because it most often happens in the midst of successful ministry. Well, that's where the people use, over-use, and abuse the ones who serve. It's where they have come in and picked you up, gotten a drink out of the chosen vessel and you're just on call - always. Everyone wants you and only you. All of a sudden -PLUNK! You find yourself sitting up on the shelf saying, "What am I doing up here?"

Then the potter walks by and you say, "Hello. I can still hold water! Get me off this shelf! I've still 'got it!'" He just looks at you and nods as He walks by. That wouldn't be too bad if no one else walked by, but the tongue-waggers walk by too, the critics. "Oh, boy. Talk about a 'has-been.' He's a 'has-been.' She's a 'has-been.'" "Oh yeah. You know, I remember when they.... You hear all of this but you can't move! "Why, they used to be... Don't you wonder what went wrong? What happened?" That's persecution.

And there will be persecution. Yes, there will be, because persecution strengthens our walk with God. "WHEN I CAME TO THE END OF THE ROAD AND FOUND THERE WAS NOTHING LEFT BUT GOD, IT WAS THERE I FOUND THAT GOD WAS ENOUGH."

Persecution can start in the family. It can start in the church. It can start anywhere. It does not matter - but when the potter picks you up and sets you out of the center of activity, I promise you, His purpose is to do you good, not harm! He knows what He is doing and He knows what you need. This is the same potter that will one day return. He will pick you up and scrape you off again, clean you up and put you back in the kiln because the USEfulness that He knows He can have from you must come through a freshened vessel. And, as long as I'm successful in ministry, I sometimes don't care how fresh I am personally if what's inside coming out for others is fresh. If the Word is fresh and people are being renewed and changed, I would just press on, wearing myself out, being discouraged in between messages, and so on. The Lord says, "I love you far more than that. Yes, I could put clean water and oil and wine in you every day. That is not a problem. But you see, I called you as a chosen vessel and I want YOU to be renewed. I want to get rid of some things that have tainted you." We must not fight that. Know there is divine purpose behind this time of seeming uselessness or lack of productivity. And know this also: the workings of God in your life are not persecution.

Now, Jeremiah changed Pashur's name to Magor-missabib (Jeremiah 20:3). Pashur means "freedom." Magor-missabib means "terror on every side," or we might say, fear on every side. For those Christians who do not have a mature walk with God, when negatives come, when persecutions come, there's terror on every side.

I surely want to be one who can honestly say, "None of these things move me" (Acts 20:24). The one who said that, Paul, had been beaten, stoned, whipped, left in the water to die and left outside of cities to die, and all the other things (2Cor.11:23-27), and yet he says, "I've been through all these things, of course, but none of these things move me. They can't find anything that moves me." That's what he was saying. "They've done everything they know to do to me, but they can't move me." Move him from what? Away from his God or his purpose or his understanding of faithfulness. Persecution must not distract us from our cause.

4) PERSISTENCE.

Jeremiah simply continues to prophesy regardless of what man does to deter him. They put him in stocks (Jer.20:2), threw him into a hole (Jer.38:6), and he just looked to the opening and prophesied! Oh, that we could be so persistent!

I grew up in "Pentecost" and my father's call was to "pioneer churches," we call it today. He would go to a city where there were no churches teaching about the power of the Holy Spirit. My Dad looked around and tried to find a place, like a storefront, that we could afford to rent. Then he would just start preaching, and he always started with only his family. He had 5 kids and our mother and there we were, the six of us. Dad would preach. Little by little the church would grow and little by little that building would fill up. But as soon as we'd get a building decent enough that I could be proud to invite my friends to church, or we'd live in a house that was freshly fixed up by my mother and dad, as soon as things began to look pretty good Dad would move on to the next city. He had fulfilled his call for that place.

As a child, I used to despise all those relocations because we stayed in one place only long enough to establish the church. Dad never had big congregations - 35-50 people - but I can drive through Oregon and see great works of God today that were started by my Dad in storefronts. He was simply faithful. He was persistent in his call, a powerful man of God who never received public recognition for all his labors. I have seen many mighty miracles occur because we were usually on the "wrong side of town" where the rent was cheap. And the drunks would stagger in - and walk out sober. One time, I saw a man come in and as he stepped into the aisle he had a pistol in his hand. He boldly said, "You've ruined my home! My wife came here and you have ruined my home. Now, you're going to pay for this." And he raised that thing - I can still remember the feeling of stark terror that pierced through me. My Dad just stood there - "...having done all..." you stand (Eph. 6:13) and he looked at the man. All of a sudden, the man screamed out, "Help! I'm paralyzed!" Oh, yes! "Greater is He that is in you..." (1 John 4:4). What a demonstration of God's power!

My father came down from the pulpit, walked to the man, laid hands on him, and asked the Lord to release him. The gun fell to the floor - just like the man did - and he received Jesus Christ as his own personal Savior. That whole family became active in our church. This is just one of many miraculous times I could relate!

Do you know why I trust this God we serve? I've seen Him in action! And I've seen Him in action through men and women who didn't have big churches; who didn't have fame and recognition because of television broadcasts. They simply kept their places and remained in order (see 1 Chron.12:38). They persistently followed and obeyed God.

5) And here's the PARADOX: Jeremiah wanted to quit, but he couldn't.

Listen to him in chapter 20, verse 7: "O, Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was persuaded; thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed...." The word persuaded is /pathah/ - it means "enticed, deceived in the negative sense, allured, flattered, persuaded." That's what God has done to everyone of us who are called. God has persuaded us. Remember all the altar calls you have answered? We sang, "I'll go where You want me to go, dear Lord, O'er mountain, o'er plain, o'er sea. I'll say what You want me to say, dear Lord; I'll be what You want me to be." Of course we responded. The anointing was active there in the altar call! It is powerful to sit under the anointing of God ("thou art stronger than I" v.7).

"Where You lead me, I will follow. Whatever You want from me, Lord, I will do." Then reality sets in, and that is what Jeremiah is saying. In today's vernacular, we would say, "You tricked me, Lord!" Jeremiah continues, "...I am a laughingstock all the time; everyone ridicules me. For whenever I speak, I cry out - I proclaim: Violence and destruction! because the word of the LORD has become for me constant disgrace and derision." (vv.7, 8).

Jeremiah complains that the message God gives him is never encouraging and comforting. It is always "Violence and destruction." The people do not want to hear it, and because God delays His hand of immediate judgment, they laugh at the message and mock Jeremiah. He wants to quit. Apparently Jeremiah struggles and avows not to speak for God, but finds he cannot cap and contain what he hears. He says, "If I say: I won't mention Him or speak any longer in His name, His message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones. I become tired of holding it in, and I cannot prevail." (v.9, HCSB)

My children - my adopted children in the faith - tease about how tough I am on them (like a good mother). But the truth is, "correction" is part of my calling. I don't know anyone who honestly likes confrontation - to give it or receive it. There are times I would prefer God give the hard messages to someone else - but He continues to use me in these situations. Sometimes I would like to just "sit on" things I know God has spoken, but like Jeremiah, I cannot. In the past, I envied my brother Judson, who is a true father in the faith - soft-spoken, gentle, holy, doesn't put up with un-holiness, but he has a way of just loving you out of it. If I try to function like my brother, no one listens. It's simply a difference in the call.

You cannot and should not try to be something God has not called you to do or be. You can't be tough if you're not tough, and you can't be gentle if you're not gentle. God will use you like He wants to use you because He knows what will be effective and accomplish what it is He is trying to do. Just be you. Be who God wants you to be. Be who you are in God.