Staying in the Trench
SCRIPTURE: 1 Corinthians 16:1-16 
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BIO: My name is Rebecca Bedell and I am the Minister of Worship at FPCO. I am married to Mike and have an awesome family – Ann Kallyn is 19 and a freshman at Valencia, Dylan is a first grader at TCS and Wil is 24 and also works at FPCO and is newly married to Natalie!
KEY VERSE: 1 Corinthians 16:8-9; 13-14 But I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, because a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me…Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith, be people of courage; be strong. Do everything in love.
CENTRAL TRUTH: The central truth of this passage is perseverance into God’s calling on our lives.
DEVOTIONAL: Staying in the Trench
It is not hard for me to believe that Paul would want to remain in Ephesus to do the work for which God had opened the door – it is surprising to me that he would want to stay because there were many who opposed him. In that same situation, I think my first response would be to flee the opposition and to go somewhere else where God would open another door of service.
We have all heard of "trench warfare" – being in the trench is not glamorous; it is dirty, tiring, laborious work. When we find ways to serve God, we are in the trench – doing the hard work of service, relationship building, encouraging – not all of those ways of serving Christ are easy. They take effort and an intentional resolve to stay in the trench, find out what God has for you to do and do it.
Paul, however gives us encouragement and in verse 13-14 tells us to: Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous and strong and to do everything in love. Around the church we often talk about balancing the truth with grace and love. Sometimes this is a hard balance to strike – but we will never learn how to accomplish this if we flee the trench. Commit. Pray. Watch. Stand firm. Christ will meet you there.
QUESTION 1: Are there times in your life you have fled what you knew God had for you, in fear of the difficulty or persecution it might bring?
QUESTION 2: Do you work at balancing the truth with love or do you tend to swing the ends of the spectrum of truth without mercy or all love and no truth?
QUESTION 3: What trench does God have you in? What opportunities for service are around you?
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