Endurance Crash Course
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Open your bibles this morning to Hebrews chapter 10…
On this morning where we celebrate our anniversary as a church, we have to look back at the last 187 years and consider, how did we get here. The average lifespan of a church as we know it is somewhere between 80 to 100 years old. We have over doubled that. Lest we get proud, may we remember that 187 years is just a good start… God is eternal. He is not looking to make sure a church exists for a certain time. But that it honors Him.
How does a church last 187 years and still have a gospel witness in the community? Well there are two words we must consider. The first is grace… It is only by God’s grace that we have made it this long. Every good and perfect gift comes from the Lord. He has allowed us to carry on… Lest you think I am oversating it, consider the first century church of phesus. Jesus himself told the church Revelation 2:5
5 ‘Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first. But if not, I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place, unless you repent.
Over time churches vanish. They vanish because of unfaithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ. Over time, the world creeps in, the fire and passion for Christ goes out, and the church as a body of Christ, maybe not as an institution, ceases to exist. For nearly 800 years the church in Ephesus has been disolved as the nation in which it resides is almost entirely muslim.
So how will we carry on? How will we continue to carry out the mission given to the church and last, should the lord tarry, another 187 years in honoring Christ and serving as a faithful witness of His Kingdom against the world? That leads me to our second word, and the word of the day, endurance. To consider endurance we need to look at Hebrews 10 this morning… So in the honor of the reading of God’s word, lets stand together and hear Hebrews 10:35-39….
35 Therefore, do not throw away that confidence of yours, which has a great reward.
36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.
37 For yet in a very little while,
He who is coming will come, and will not delay.
38 But My righteous one shall live by faith,
And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.
39 But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.
In its simplest form, endurance is the ability to maintain an activity over a long period... Endurance refers to an individual’s ability to sustain prolonged submaximal activity without getting tired or fatigued. Yet, as we consider endurance in the word of God we could add to that definition the ability to display “A brave calm and steadfast courage” in the midst of suffering or adversity. What does it mean to be brave??? Young men? Little boys? I want you to be as brave as ever… so what does it mean to be brave?
It means to have the mental and moral strength to face and endure danger, fear, or difficulty, even when you are afraid. Bravery is not the absence of fear, but rather the courage to act in spite of it. A brave calm… and a steadfast courgae. What does it mean to be steadfast? It means to have feet planted. Like a firm foundation, something that is immovable… Put all this together, and you get hupa-mone. Listen to James talk about Hupa-mone…
This is the greek word, hupa-mone James 1:3
knowing that the testing of your faith brings about perseverance (hupa-mone).
What kind of perseverance is he talking about?
Behold, we count those blessed who persevere (hupa-mone). You have heard of the perseverance (hupa-mone) of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.
hupa-mone does not shrink back. It stakes right behind what it holds to. It does not waver or budge. It continues on in the midst of adversity even if it is continuing on imperfectly. So this morning, I want to give you a crash course on endurance. Where does it originate from? What is its purpose? And the like. Next week we will consider, how do we get it? How do we endure? …Because look, the scriptures tell us that we need this. We must, as Christians, have a brave calm and a steadfast courage to confess Christ in all of our life.
So First, I want you to consider that
Endurance is Eternal
Endurance is Eternal
Endurance is an attribute of God. He is the one who perfectly shows us what a brave calm and a steadfast courage is…
Paul calls Him Romans 15:5
Now may the God of perseverance(hupa-mone) and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus,
That is who He is. The God of brave calm and steadfast courage. The God who never gives up, or runs out of justice, or mercy.
The psalms put it this way…
For Yahweh is good;
His lovingkindness endures forever
And His faithfulness, generation unto generation.
To Him who made the heavens with skill,
For His lovingkindness endures forever;
Goes on to say this ten more times to remind the reader and the one singing this psalm, God’s loving kindness endures. It never ends.
We know that God is love… What does love do? 1 Corinthians 13:7 Love….
it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures (hupa-mone) all things.
The picture of Love, God himself, is to endure. Though God does not have a call to be brave in the sense that he is afraid, he shows us what it means to stand up and continue on for what is right no matter the pressure from without… God faces no pressure, he sits in the heavens and laughs at the plans of men who seek to thwart his plans. But he is the pinnacle of brave and steadfast. He never changes, he never goes back on his covenant, and he never does what is wrong or unrighteous… Endurance is eternal…
Secondly…
Endurance is essential
Endurance is essential
The preacher in Hebrews says and we have seen, “you have need of endurance… So that when you have done the will of God you may receive the promise”. If we work that in reverse we can read, we will not receive the promise if we do not have endurance doing the work of God… Jesus told us the same thing…
“But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.
The will of God in the life of the Christian is not done once. It is throughout the duration of a lifetime. The will of God in your life is not a sprint, it is a marathon. It is the longest ultra race known to man. Therefore, it takes endurance. It is easier to sprint. It is altogether harder to last in an endurance race… Therefore, you have need of endurance. It is essential.
Cowards don’t endure. Cowards give up. They run away or do not stand up for what they know to be true because of fear. They are those who have no issue changing their mind and going with the flow. Their are christian cowards and non Christian cowards… But endurance is essential in that you will be pressured from within, that is your own cowardice, your flesh… because of the pressures from without. Consdier Thomas Cranmer…
on March 21, 1556, a crowd of curious spectators packed University Church in Oxford, England. They were there to witness the public recantation of one of the most well-known English Reformers, a man named Thomas Cranmer.
Cranmer had been arrested by Roman Catholic authorities nearly three years earlier. After many months in prison, under daily pressure from his captors and the imminent threat of being burned at the stake, the Reformer’s faith faltered. His enemies eventually persuaded him to sign several documents renouncing his Protestant faith.
In a moment of weakness, in order to prolong his life, Cranmer denied the truths he had defended throughout his ministry, the very principles upon which the Reformation itself was based.
Roman Catholic Queen Mary I, known to church history as “Bloody Mary,” viewed Cranmer’s retractions as a mighty trophy in her violent campaign against the Protestant cause. But Cranmer’s enemies wanted more than just a written recantation. They wanted him to declare it publicly.
And so, on March 21, 1556, Thomas Cranmer was taken from prison and brought to University Church. Dressed in tattered clothing, the weary, broken, and degraded Reformer took his place at the pulpit. A script of his public recantation had already been approved; and his enemies sat expectantly in the audience, eager to hear his clear denunciation of the evangelical faith.
But then the unexpected happened.
In the middle of his speech, Thomas Cranmer deviated from his script. To the shock and dismay of his enemies, he refused to recant the true gospel. Instead, he bravely recanted his earlier recantations.
Finding the courage he had lacked over those previous months, the emboldened Reformer announced to the crowd of shocked onlookers:
‘I come to the great thing that troubles my conscience more than any other thing that I ever said or did in my life: and that is, the setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth, which here now I renounce and refuse, as things written with my hand [which were] contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, [being] written for fear of death, and to save my life.”
Cranmer went on to say that if he should be burned at the stake, his right hand would be the first to be destroyed, since it had signed those recantations. And then, just to make sure no one misunderstood him, Cranmer added this: “And as for the pope, I refuse him, as Christ’s enemy and antichrist, with all his false doctrine.”
Chaos ensued.
Moments later, Cranmer was seized, marched outside, and burned at the stake.
True to his word, he thrust his right hand into the flames so that it might be destroyed first. As the flames encircled his body, Cranmer died with the words of Stephen on his lips: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. I see the heavens open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God….
The Apostle Paul makes us a great promise…
If we endure, we will also reign with Him;
If we will deny Him, He also will deny us;
So, in order to finish the race of the will of God set before us, without disgracing our Lord, endurance is not optional… Our Text says, that we must have it, not should have it! The preacher knows, we will face many pressures to give up, to grow lazy in, to turn back on, or to recant and say all that we believed about God is not worth dying for.
Third,
Endurance is evidence
Endurance is evidence
The one who endures will receive the promise…The one who endures will be saved.
My friends, endurance can be found. But not in and of ourselves… Our hope of endurance is found in God. 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it.
My friends, do you want a brave calm and a steadfast courage? There is a simple answer to this and a complex answer. The complex answer we will talk about next week. The simple answer is found in Hebrews 12:2
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
It seems obvious right… Look to Jesus. Look to Christ. Draw near to Jesus. However, I don’t think it is as easy as it seems. Because we say Look to Jesus, but what does that mean. If looking to Jesus to you means reading in Jesus calling, and trying to be a happy and cheerful person every day, when the trials of life come in your life or in someone else’s that requires hupa-mone, you will not be able to endure and will be ineffective at helping others as well.
Go back to hebrews 12:2… Look at the first word. If your bible saying looking to, I don’t think it is a strong enough word. A better translation is, fixing our eyes. The word means literally to look away from all other things, and focus with unwavering intensity on one thing.
This is how you begin to learn endurance. Look to him, who endured the cross. Endurance is evidence. Evidence that you had the love of God poured our into your heart through the Holy Spirit. It is evidence that Christ was in you. Jesus is the ultimate picture of endurance. Which is why we are to look to him. Who else has done what he has done? No one… He was obedient to God, loved God with all of his heart, soul,, mind, and stregnth that he gave them all up to save those who were being called… To save a world that was lost. He gave up his life, to please the father. He loved him to death…
There call for Christlike endurance then is for you …
look at chapter 12 verse 3. Hebrews 12:3
For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary, fainting in heart.
For consider him. Consider, means to properly reason up to a conclusion by moving through the needed thought-process. This is where we get our word “analyze”… Analyze Jesus. Oh my goodness. My friends, the scriptures warn us, we need endurance. Because life as a Christian is not easy. If your Christian walk has been easy, I dare ask if you truly live for Christ at all… To deny the world… to shed sin… to live for Christ, not just publically, but where it actually counts, privately… This is a battle. It is a race…. But we will find endurance if He keep HIM, Jesus Christ, as our main focus point. If we cherish Him, and hold him more dear than our screen time.
Look to Him, the perfect. The marvelous. The Creator, made flesh, the uncovered undercover boss who dwelt with his creation. Fix your eyes, your life, your all on Him who is better than anything any eye has seen or ear has heard. Consider what He did in his obedience to death; his rejection of reviling; his zeal for His father; His sacrifice for you. When your sins were many, His mercy was all the more!
Consider Jesus, so that you will not grow weary and faint in heart. This is the way you will take hold of and endure eternally like God in Heaven rather than Hell…This is how your family will be kept in the narrow path and be honoring to the Almighty God while you have breathe in your lungs… and this is the way we as a Church will continue to exist for another 187 years.… We will die, we will faint, we will shamefully dishonor our King if we do anything less.
NEXT WEEK YOU NEED TO TALK ABOUT TENSILE STRENGTH AND THE FACT THAT DISCIPLINE INCREASES ENDURANCE.
(Find ways to subject yourself to suffering)
