The 1959 William Wyler film, Ben-Hur, tells the moving story of a Jewish aristocrat (Ben-Hur) betrayed by his best friend (Messala), and condemned to serve as a galley slave in the Roman navy. On a forced march to the ship, Judah Ben-Hur meets Jesus of Nazareth, who not only gives him water and a motivation to live, but whose compassion fills him with hope.<\/p>\n
Eventually, Ben-Hur saves the Roman commander Arrius during battle. In gratitude, the commander adopts Ben-Hur as his son, instantly elevating him from slave to heir.<\/p>\n
Thats what happens to us when God adopts us into His family (Romans 8:14-15; Gal. 4:4-7; Ephesians 1:5). However, great privilege brings great responsibility (Luke 12:48). Paul said that we become:<\/p>\n
\n“heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him<\/strong>” (Romans 8:17).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The gospel never says that we’ll live happily ever after when we become a Christian, but that our spiritual education includes training through difficulties and hardships (2 Timothy 3:12; 1 Peter 1:3-9).<\/p>\n
Ben-Hurs years of enduring hardship as a Roman slave strengthened him and increased his endurance. He eventually used that endurance, to defeat his betrayer in a chariot race.<\/p>\n
As endurance and training<\/strong> were vital to Ben-Hur’s victory, they are also vital to victory in the Christians war with sin and evil (1 Peter 1:3-9; 1 Peter 4:1-7). The difficult times we endure are Gods way to prepare us for greater service in His kingdom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 1959 William Wyler film, Ben-Hur, tells the moving story of a Jewish aristocrat (Ben-Hur) betrayed by his best friend (Messala), and condemned to serve as a galley slave in the Roman navy. On a forced march to the ship, Judah Ben-Hur meets Jesus of Nazareth, who not only gives him water and a motivation … Continue reading “Endurance And Training \u2014 Vital To Victory – Bible study”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}