Endurance to the End

Hebrews: The Supremacy of Christ  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented
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Hebrews 10:32-39
Remember the earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to taunts and afflictions, and at other times you were companions of those who were treated that way. For you sympathized with the prisoners and accepted with joy the confiscation of your possessions, because you know that you yourselves have a better and enduring possession. So don’t throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will, you may receive what was promised.
For yet in a very little while, the Coming One will come and not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith; and if he draws back, I have no pleasure in him.
But we are not those who draw back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and are saved.
This is the Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
How many here have been gotten super excited about something new? Perhaps it was a new diet, a new workout routine, or even a new hobby.
How many of you stuck with that new thing for a little while, but eventually gave up because it took too much time or money, or it was just not as fun or effective as you thought it would be?
This is sort of what the author of Hebrews is dealing with in our passage today.
The original audience was Jews who had become Christians, who were now considering returning to Judaism because of various trials and hardships. We can see how the author has laid this out throught this 10th chapter of Hebrews.
In light of Christ’s perfect sacrifice for sins (10:1-18), the author goes on to encourage his listeners/readers toward Godliness (vv19-23), encouraging them to continue to gather together (vv 24-25) so they may encourage each other toward love and good works. He then warns them of the dangers of deliberate sin (vv 26-31). Today, we see him encouraging this readers to keep the faith in spite of the hardships they have faced since they turned to Christ. Next week, we will start in Hebrews 11, where the author gives a list of OT people who kept their faith despite trial and hardship.
These Jewish Christians seemed to be close to giving up on following Christ. But the author tells them of their need for endurance, and how that endurance will carry them on to the promised hope we have in our superior Savior.
Big Idea: Endurance from the Lord will carry us to his reward.
Hebrews 10:32-34
Remember the earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to taunts and afflictions, and at other times you were companions of those who were treated that way. For you sympathized with the prisoners and accepted with joy the confiscation of your possessions, because you know that you yourselves have a better and enduring possession.
The author is reminding his readers of when they first came to Christ. They had such a zeal for Jesus that they were willing to endure hardship. This is not the “hardship” that many Christians claim that they face today. Those who claim to follow Jesus have a tendency to fall into the same trap that the rest of the world sets for themselves, claiming hardship to be something as simple as, “This person left a negative comment on my TikTok video.” There are more and more people in this country who claim that people who disagree with them are oppressing them. We live in a world where we think that no one should suffer, and if there is suffering, there needs to be someone to blame. (Oppressor/Oppressed ideologies from Marx in the church)
But these Jewish Christians experienced a lot more than just “negative comments.” The author says they faced public taunts and afflictions along with others they knew. These afflictions included imprisonment, as we see in our text. These Hebrew Christians sympathized with those who were thrown into prison and facing persecution for their faith.
Remember that the book of Hebrews was likely written before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in AD 70, because the author talks about sacrifices still being offered, and those sacrifices could only be offered at the temple. So this letter was likely written around AD 65-69, when the emperor Nero was systematically persecuting Christians. He would have them thrown in cages or arenas with lions or wild dogs. He would crucify them. He would douse them in oil, light them on fire, and use the flaming bodies as lanterns in his gardens. It is generally believed that the Apostle Paul was beheaded and the Apostle Peter was crucified upside down under the reign of Nero. These are the afflictions and hardships that the author of Hebrews may very well be referencing that the Jewish Christians have endured.
The author also mentions that they had their possessions taken away from them. But notice what he says about this…
Hebrews 10:34

For you sympathized with the prisoners and

Did you know that you should be joyful about having your possessions taken away from you because of your faith in Jesus? It is a repeated theme throughout the New Testament that followers of Jesus should consider it a joy to face hardship in this life, whether it is physical hardship, financial hardship, or even persecution for your faith.
In the very beginning of his letter, James, who was the half-brother of Jesus, writes this to the Jewish Christians who had been scattered across the various Gentile nations. In verse one, he introduces himself and tells who he is writing to. Then we see this in verse 2:
James 1:2

Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials…

Not just joy. Consider it GREAT joy when you face various trials. I will admit that I struggle to be very joyful when medical bills come in and Emily and I have to make adjustments to our monthly budget in order to make sure all those bills get paid. I find it hard to be joyful when I am called un-Christian and a blasphemer for telling people to avoid false teachers who will use the name of Jesus to gain political power.
(A couple of months ago, I posted on social media about a man running for public office as a Christian, but says that the Virgin Mary would support abortion, that atheists are “more Christ-like” than Christians, and more. I flat-out called this guy a “ravenous wolf trying to devour God’s sheep.” A guy that I went to high school with commented on that post, calling it blasphemous, that I should be embarrassed to cast such public judgment as a church “leader”, and that my post was the most un-Christian thing he has seen.)
But the reason that we are to consider our trials and hardships as joy is because they are a gift. That is what Paul told the Philippians in 1:29.
Philippians 1:29

For it has been granted to you on Christ’s behalf not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him…

We are supposed to be joyful when we receive gifts, especially when those gifts come from God. Jesus warned his own disciples that they would receive hatred and strife for following him, and told them why:
John 15:18-19

“If the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you.”

Great news! We are going to be hated by the world because the world hated Jesus before it hated us! But the reason for our joy in suffering is not about what happens in this world. We do our best to allow the Holy Spirit to work in us so that we can endure suffering with joy because our true, lasting, and enduring possession has nothing to do with earthly possessions. That is why the Jewish Christians accepted that consequence with joy. Christians understand that what we see in this life has eternal consequences, that there is more than this world. We understand that Christ reigns supreme over those that would hate us, taunt us, or persecute us. He reigns supreme over our health issues, financial problems, and relationship difficulties. If we are true servants of Christ, we have a better and more enduring possession than this world will ever know.
(Give Me Jesus
In the morning when I rise… When I am alone… When I come to die…)
Is that your heart’s cry in difficult circumstances? Do you cry out “Give me Jesus”? Or is it “Give me affirmation…” or “Give me social media…” or “Give me distraction…”?
And so, the author of Hebrews encourages his readers.
Hebrews 10:35-36
So don’t throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will, you may receive what was promised.
The author now turns to encouraging his readers to continue to endure in the face of hardship. He tells them that they NEED endurance. He even tells them not to throw away their confidence in the Lord. Giving up on God after you have seen him work in your life is the equivalent to throwing all of that in the trash.
We are not told to have joy in the face of hardship for no reason. There is a reward for endurance.
When we see the Apostle James tell his readers that they should have joy in the midst of their various trials, he tells them why.
James 1:2-4

Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.

When we endure trials, which James calls the testing of our faith, it produces endurance. Endurance is not something we are born with. We are not born with the ability to run a marathon when we come out of the womb. Babies wake up, eat, fill their diapers, and then go back to sleep because those first three things are exhausting. It is only after their bodies have gotten used to a new environment outside the womb that they begin to look more alert and stay awake for longer periods of time.
The same could be said of baby Christians. New believers do not normally have the endurance to pray for an hour straight, or to dig into scripture with the intensity it takes to understand a topic to teach it to someone else. Christians with those types of habits have developed them over years of time, often through necessity, because the trials and hardships they have faced in this life drove them to prayer and reading Scripture.
Charles Spurgeon - I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me upon the Rock of Ages.
Spurgeon understood that the trials he faced in this life were meant to draw him closer to Jesus.
The more we draw close to Jesus in our trials, the more we will see God's work in us to endure those trials. Endurance is what gets us to the end, when we will finally see what was promised.
But endurance is not passive. Endurance is active. We don't “let go and let God,” but instead actively seek to understand what God may be teaching us in the moment so that we can grow in him.
Hypomonē, rendered endurance, means not a negative, passive acquiescence, but an active, manly endurance: ‘not the resignation of the passive sufferer, so much as the fortitude of the stout-hearted soldier’
Leon Lamb Morris
I love war movies. One of my favorite war movies of all time is Saving Private Ryan. I usually try to watch it around Memorial Day every year. Before this movie came out, many people struggled to understand the PTSD that soldiers battled after coming out of War. The scene in which the Allied soldiers are landing on Normandy on D-Day was so vivid that World War II vets would leave the theater in shock. One theater employee reported two WWII vets leaving and embracing in the lobby, sobbing. One vet said, "The only thing that was missing was the smell."
These reactions relay the devastating nature of what took place on June 6th 1944. And yet, in the midst of all that gunfire, explosions, and men falling down dead to the left and right, soldiers pushed forward to reach their objective of taking the beach. If they had just sat there on the beach, they would have died. They had to look forward to what the end goal was in order to keep pushing through the destruction around them.
Endurance is active.
Are you a soldier moving forward through the chaos? Or are you content to sit, curled up in a ball, exposed to the danger, as the bullets are flying over your head and bombs are going off all around you?
Paul also spoke about enduring afflictions in Romans chapter 5.
Romans 5:3-5

And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Paul himself shows the joy of facing affliction when he says that he boasts in his afflictions. In a way, he is saying that he takes pride in the fact that he faces persecution and trials in this life. He says that our afflictions produce endurance, just as James said. However, Paul then says that endurance produces a proven character. I think we can say that those who show a proven good character can often be called mature, just as James described. That good character then produces hope within us. That endurance and good character point us to the hope that we have in Christ. It is only in Jesus that we can have a great reward.
When we are struggling in this life, struggling to endure, we must remember the promises that God makes to his people, knowing that he is faithful to keep those promises. And when we remember the promises of God, we will keep our hope in him.
Think of a runner in a race. As the runner is exhausted, feeling like he has no strength left, the endurance of his mind, picturing the hope of the finish line, is what drives his legs and body to keep pushing to the end, even when they feel like they have no strength left.
The hardships we face in this life can look like a lot of different things. Hardship could be dealing with physical sickness. It could be struggling with your finances. Hardship could come from not knowing how to deal with stress, leading to anxiety and depression. But hardship could also be being confronted with false teachings about who God is. Hardship could be hearing someone say something about scripture that contradicts what you believe about scripture.
How do you deal with those hardships? Do you face them, moving forward as you trust the Lord to lead you and guide you through the trial? Do you remember that your hope is not in the things or the people of this world but in Christ?
When our hope is fixed on the future, we can endure the hardships and trials we will face on our way to the finish line.
Don’t live for what the world will promise you today! Live for what God has promised you in the future! Be a stranger and a pilgrim on this earth! Walk by faith, not by sight!
Warren W. Wiersbe
Hebrews 10:37-39
For yet in a very little while, the Coming One will come and not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith; and if he draws back, I have no pleasure in him.
But we are not those who draw back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and are saved.
Theological Focus: Our confidence rests not on our own strength to endure, but on the faithfulness of Christ, our Superior High Priest, who has already entered the heavenly sanctuary on our behalf.
The author then quotes from Isaiah 26:20 and Habakkuk 2:3-4 to tell of how Christ will return, but that they must endure. And he uses these two Scriptures to show the difference between the wicked person and the righteous person whose life is characterized by faithfulness.
Habakkuk 2:3-4

For the vision is yet for the appointed time;

it testifies about the end and will not lie.

Though it delays, wait for it,

since it will certainly come and not be late.

Look, his ego is inflated;

he is without integrity.

But the righteous one will live by his faith.

The prophet Habakkuk describes the wicked person as having an inflated ego and being without integrity. This is what the author of Hebrews is referring to when he talks about a person drawing back. Pride is all about self importance. Its about what I want, what I think I need. When that becomes our mindset, our lives are no longer about God, and we start to draw away from him. Those who draw back and away from the Lord, God will have no pleasure in them.
This reminds me of the parable of the sower in Matthew 13. This is the parable where Jesus describes different people as seed falling in different places. Some seed falls on the path, some on Rocky ground, some Falls among the thorns, and some falls on good ground. I think our passage in Hebrews directly relates to the seed that fell on Rocky ground.
Matthew 13:5-6

Other seed fell on rocky ground where it didn’t have much soil, and it grew up quickly since the soil wasn’t deep. But when the sun came up, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away.

Later, Jesus describes to his disciples what he meant about each type of seed. Here is what he said bout the seed on rocky ground.
Matthew 13:20-21

And the one sown on rocky ground—this is one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. But he has no root and is short-lived. When distress or persecution comes because of the word, immediately he falls away.

Jesus was not describing different kinds of Christians and how they live their lives. Jesus was describing people in general who hear his call to follow after him. The various soils leave the seeds to be eaten or destroyed by the various hardships they encounter: eaten by birds, trampled by feet, scorched by the sun, choked out by thorn bushes.
The only soil that produces anything of value with the seed of the Word of God is the good soil.
That is why the author quotes from Habakkuk 2, saying, “The righteous will live by faith.”
The Apostle Paul also mentions this passage from Habakkuk in both Romans and Galatians. In his letter to the Roman church, he is describing the gospel of Jesus Christ and how he is not ashamed of that gospel. In Romans 1:17 he tells his reader why.
Romans 1:17

For in (the gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.

He says the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ, working in our hearts and minds from faith, or by faith, pointing us forward to faith and and hope to our future with Christ. Only the righteous have that kind of faith.
And that righteousness is not something you earned. Paul says later in Romans 3 that the righteousness that Christians have is through faith in Christ. It is the grace that God gives to sinners through Jesus’s own work of paying the penalty that you and I deserved for our own sins. Jesus earned the righteousness. He then gives it freely to those who believe in him, submitting their lives to his rule and authority.
That is how we become righteous in the sight of God. That is how we live: by faith.
The author of Hebrews then shares his confidence that his readers, like he himself, are not those who shrink back from following after the Lord, but who have faith in the Lord, that he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and that he will save us, drawing us into his kingdom. Our endurance is not something we create by pulling up our bootstraps. Our endurance comes from knowing the one who promises life for those who believe in him.
Do you know him? Do you just believe that God exists, but you have not put any faith or trust in him?
Knowing about God is not the same as knowing God.
Knowing God involves trust, reliance, and complete dependance on him because you know that without him you are lost, you have nothing. Without knowing God, you will not endure to the end. The hardships of this life will tear you down, leaving you with no hope.
But you can have hope today.
John 16:33

“I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”

Christ has already conquered the world! The victory is won! If look at the end of the book, Jesus wins! And the church then reigns forever with Christ!
Your money problems don’t win. Your health problems don’t win. The people who hate us because of our faith don’t win. And that should give us the peace and endurance to continue looking to him in the midst of our hardship.
Emily has told me many times of Dr. Erik Thoennes, who is Head of the Bible department at Biola University. He was preaching in chapel on Romans chapter 8 and got to the part where it says, “…we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”
And he looks across the chapel auditorium and says:
“Cheer up church! We win!” - Dr. Erik Thoennes
When you are dealing with the trials of life, cheer up! Because through Christ, we win!
Let us pray.
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