Certainty in an Age of Uncertainty: Remember to Endure

Introduction

There’s a common idiom in the United States that the only guarantees in life are death and taxes. This idiom is almost as old as the country itself. In my formative years, growing up in a majority African American community in Brooklyn, we had a modified version of this idiom. The reference to taxes was removed and we would say to one another the only guarantees in life is that you’re gonna stay Black, and you’re gonna die. Now, neither idiom is meant to be very inspiring. They’re pointing us to and rooting us in the futility of having a sense of certainty about anything in this life. Life is fleeting and certainty, particularly about hopeful things is sure to leave you disappointed.

One of my favorite passages in the gospel accounts is the beginning of Luke’s gospel. It’s a simple statement in v. 4 of ch. 1 where Luke says to Theopholis that he’s written an orderly account so that Theopholis might have certainty about the things he’d been taught. Things he’d been taught about Jesus and the gospel. Certainty.

We find a reminder about certainty and hope in the first verse of Hebrews 11, when the Pastor says, “Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for. It is the conviction about the things we don’t see.

Here’s why I bring those two passages of Scripture to your attention. I’m speaking to you over these few minutes on “Certainty in an Age of Uncertainty.” But in one respect it’s more common to live in an age of uncertainty than it is to live in an age of certainty. The biblical writers had to exhort their hearers towards certainty because life often communicates that certainty about hopeful things is a fool’s errand.

I want to look back at the verses right before Hebrews 11 to assure you that hope is not a hustle; that living with certain assurance about what God has said in spite of contrary experience is how we bear witness in this world to gospel hope.

Hebrews 10:32–39 ESV

32 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, 33 sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. 34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. 35 Therefore do not throw away your confidence, 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 what is promised. 37 For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one 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 and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

Their pastor’s exhortation to them is to “endure,” endure through the hardships, endure through the sufferings, you have a great and mighty Savior, Jesus Christ. He’s already told them in this word of exhortation that Jesus is better than the angels. He was made perfect through suffering. He defeated death to deliver you from being under lifelong slavery to the fear of death. He’s superior to any priest because by his death he made a complete and perfect sacrifice for sins. Then he got up from the grave and went up to his rightful place in the heavenly throne where continually lives to intercede for and strengthen his people. Now he says, you have need of endurance. Your hope in Jesus is not a hustle.

Endure with Joy

The way he encourages them to endure with joy is crazy, “remember when you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property” (v. 34).

Remember how hard it was when you became a Christian?Remember how you endured? You were made a public spectacle as people insulted you and persecuted you. You weren’t ashamed to let people know that other Christians who were being thrown in prison were your sisters and brothers. Those were your people, and you didn’t care if anybody knew it.

They paid a heavy price for their compassion. Here’s where we say, this can’t be right. V. 34 has got to be a typo. The Pastor says, not only did you endure, but you weren’t moaning and groaning about your suffering. In fact, remember how you accepted the plundering of your property with joy! You willingly accepted the loss of your stuff with joy.

Have you ever been robbed? Have your things plundered? I’ve experienced having my stuff jacked from me a few times growing up in Brooklyn. I experienced a lot of emotions, but joy wasn’t one of them. People would think that you're insane if you just got all of your stuff jacked, and you weren't depressed, or angry, or despondent, or sad, or in tears, but you were joyful. Something's wrong. You're not normal. That's right. You’re not. The Pastor reminds them that they received the plundering of their possessions with joy because they knew that they had a better possession and a more lasting one. The better more lasting possession was their eternal inheritance in Jesus Christ. The gospel message is crazy. By convincing us that possessing life in Jesus is better than possessing anything else we joyfully embrace loss for the sake of the gospel.

Endure by Need

He moves from enduring by joy to enduring by need when he says in vv. 35-36, “Therefore, don’t throw away your confidence, which has great reward! For you have need of endurance, so that, after you have done God’s will, you may receive the promise.”

In the middle of difficulty and struggles spiritual realities can seem so distant. That eternal inheritance that Jesus secured when he rose from the dead seems like something that’s far away. And because we still have to wait for what we know to be true by faith to become true by sight, we're pulled toward what we can see with our eyes. There’s a pull towards putting our hopes in this life only, and when we do, we come up with idiom like, “the only guarantees in life are death and taxes.”

What’s that confidence he’s telling them not to throw away? It’s that same confidence he’s already told them about. He said in 4:16 that since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace. He said in 10:19, since we have confidence to enter into the heavenly sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.

Jesus has opened the new and living way into the presence of God through his body, and the heavenly tractor beam continues to pull us to him. And the confidence he give us to draw near is stronger than the pull to turn away from him and be satisfied with anything less than the great reward the Pastor is talking about. This confidence to continue drawing near to God will ensure that they continue to have the endurance, the staying power that they need.

Hughes, “[endurance] is faithful perseverance under and in the face of pressure and suffering and discouragement of every kind.”

Do we have a sense of the absolute need to persevere under and in the face of pressure and suffering and discouragement of every kind? I’d rather not have to deal with pressure. I’d rather not have to deal with suffering and discouragement. But nobody gets by without having to deal with pressure, suffering & discouragement. If I have to deal with them, what am I going to do with them? Am I going to try and fill my life with so much fun that I entertain them away? Am I going to try and fill my life with so much work that I’m to busy to be discouraged? Am I going to try and medicate them away? Am I going to try and drink them away, or whatever else might help me deal? The Bible says, that what we need is endurance through it. And the image the Pastor presents us with is not an attitude of “oh well. Since I have to deal with this mess, I might as well grind it out.” No. The need to endure is the need to endure with joy. The need to endure is a supernatural need that is only met as we draw near to the throne of grace with confidence. What we receive is the type of assurance of hope that brings joy to the heart even though we’re not happy about our struggles.

The Pastor says, you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. What’s the will of God? The will of God is that you endure! God’s will is that his people endure firm to the end. He wants you to persevere through the hardship firm to the end. He wants you to trust him. He wants you to say, “Lord, your grace is sufficient for me, even in this.” We need to endure because endurance is ultimately what distinguishes you as belonging to Jesus Christ.

Remember to endure. Remember that the Christian life isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon. Remember that he gives grace and power to endure hardships with joy. Remember that to be a Christian means to have need of endurance. Remember that we are always living in an age of uncertainty. Therefore, remember that enduring through life with joy is by faith in the risen Savior. And most of all, remember Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.