Sermons & Sunday Schools

Encouragement with an Appeal to Persevere (Part 2)


Full Transcript:

Let us take our Bibles this morning and turn to Hebrews 10. We are looking at verse 35 until the end of that chapter along with some other Scriptures this morning. Let me have a word of prayer, specifically for two people this morning. Shaji’s father died, and he went to India to attend the funeral with his brothers and hopefully have a conversation with them. He said his father is a very strong Christian and died at 84 years old. He is now with the Lord. Funerals are a great opportunity to share the gospel with those who do not believe. Cheryl Freuh’s mom is sick so she is with her there in Florida.

Lord this morning, I do ask You to be with our brother Shaji as he is traveling to India with his brothers. I pray that You would give him safe travels and a great opportunity there to be a witness and testimony, and that his father’s funeral would be a shining light to the gospel of Christ. To everyone that he speaks the Word, I pray that You would fill them with God’s Spirit so that the Word of God can go forth clearly and so the gospel will reach hearts, and raise spiritually dead people to life. I also pray, Lord, that You would be with Cheryl as she ministers to her mom. Give her opportunities to share the gospel with her and to be an example an a comfort to her. Bring them both back safely and accomplish Your will by them being there. Lord, we praise You this morning for the Word of God. Use it as You see fit in our own personal lives and hearts, that we would be sure about our standing with You. And that we would live for You. Use it to encourage us today in that way. I pray in Christ’s Name, Amen.

We are looking at this morning in Hebrews 10 an encouragement with an appeal to persevere in the faith. He is saying here in Hebrews, “if you did not shrink back from Christ, and the doctrines concerning so great a salvation that you received, and if you did not shrink back from the fellowship of believers in your former trials, you will not shrink back if it happens again.” Every trial and situation that comes into our lives after becoming believers, are used to strengthen us and make us stronger believers and to allow us to let go of this world. We are to let go of our own security and trust fully in Christ. This is something God has to teach us, it does not just happen.

I quickly told the story about a man named Doug Herman. He and his wife are both strong believers. They were having their first baby and go to the hospital. He is joyously holding his baby in his arms, everything had gone fine. His wife lost a lot of blood, however, and had to have a blood transfusion. The blood was tainted with HIV. Two months later, he finds out that his wife is going to die and his baby is going to die, and his grandfather who has been a stronghold in his Christian life is going to die. In a period of two months, they all died. The question is of course, why? Things happen like that, but the why may not be answered. The promises of God are still going to be the same and He is going to bring salvation to completion no matter what circumstances you or I will be a part of.

Even if we have heart wrenching stuff going on, we can still trust God. Even if we do not have all the answers, we can trust Him, that He is going to bring it to pass and finalize and sign and seal salvation forever. This is the hope that we have. Make sure that you know when you perish, that you will be with Christ!

He is saying here to them, after listening to the preacher you should seriously consider what the Lord has actually been doing in your life in the middle of trials and sufferings. After a closer examination of those sufferings, you come to realize that the Lord, your great High Priest was maturing you spiritually and developing a proven and Christ-like character. The tribulations manifested spiritual fruit that God was producing in His newly blood-bought children. God kept them through the use of their tribulations.

We are called to think about what we gain in Christ and what we just lose if we shrink away. To think about this correctly, we are called to consider the great paradox of the Christian life. As I mentioned last week, it is that the Lord’s children can be in the midst of trials and tribulations and humiliations and be weighed down, depressed in Spirit, and at the same time have a heart of great rejoicing! It is a paradox, we do not really understand it. It is only what the Spirit of God can produce.

In these difficult circumstances, we grow spiritually, mature in the faith and we do that the most probably of any circumstances that we find ourselves in. Every time we go through something, we must examine those times closely; times of tribulation that the Lord has and will again bring into us and through. These include affliction, sickness, suffering, humiliations, and problems in our lives. It is there that we begin to see with the eyes of faith, and we learn at that point that we can trust God. That is what it is all about, it is all about trusting God. This whole last section of Scripture is about just that!

For these believers, when they reviewed their past sufferings and looked closely at them, six things came to the surface. When they were brand spanking new believers the first thing that came to the surface was that they had light and were no longer in darkness. The second thing is that they gained endurance, they endured great suffering as it says in Hebrews 10:32.

The third thing is that they had a deeper appreciation of the church and the body of Christ, and that they could not live their Christian lives alone. Especially during times of tribulation and suffering. We need to pray for each other, hold each other up and encourage one another. We have to do whatever we can to make sure that we are growing to make sure we are growing stronger.

A fourth thing that we gain is sympathy. They showed sympathy to the prisoners; they gained in looking at people the way they ought to. People need spiritual help the most and to have sympathy and come in beside someone is needed. Of course in this case, they were showing sympathy to those in prison who could not get help from anywhere else but the church.

A fifth thing is that they gained joy right in the middle of affliction. They started letting go of temporal things where it says in Hebrews 10:34:

For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

There property was taken away but their joy was still intact. They could not take that away from them! The joy that God gives us in salvation and that surpasses all understanding cannot be taken away. But if you lose that joy or give it away, it is because of sin. Confess your sin and gain back your joy!

A sixth thing they gained was a promise of heavenly realities. Look at Hebrews 10:34:

For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

Once these things have been reviewed, they gained a greater appreciation of what Christ was doing in their lives. The conclusion was that it would have been so foolish to throw away so previous and valuable a gift of salvation and of a relationship with God where now all the barriers are fallen. We can approach Him anytime as His children because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, accomplishing all the work on our behalf.

The logical imperative is, therefore, do not throw away your confidence which has great reward. That is where we are heading today. We are heading to the place where we are understanding the fourth and fifth approaches to God.

The fourth approach to God is that there followers of Christ are to keep near with confidence. The one we are going to look at this morning, the fifth one, is that the followers of Christ are to keep pressing on with endurance. That becomes the main focus of this section, but there is another focus that comes in the end, that I will look at in a minute.

Here is the situation for us this morning. There is encouragement that we are to gain by looking at our trials and situations is the first one to keep on going and not let go of your confidence. This is in Hebrews 10:39:

But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

Other people have observed evidence of the work of God’s grace in your life. You have not trusted anything else but the one time sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, there is evidence of God’s work of grace in your daily struggles. That is where it is seen the most, in your struggles, trials, tribulations. That is where it becomes evidence that God is doing something in your life. He is strengthening you like nothing else can. If you did not shrink back then when you were just babes in Christ, you will remain steadfast now because you know more and you have grown more. You stuck with the church, teaching, and the Apostles’ doctrine. You stuck with the fellowship, partaking of the Lord’s Table, listening to the Spirit of God, etc. and you have grown in the Word of God. Just like what it says in Hebrews 2:1:

For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.

What is happening is that their ears perk up now because they are listening to the details of God’s Word. They are not listening to their neighbor sitting next to them, to someone who should be sitting there but is not, they are listening to themselves. They are putting themselves in the equation and have grown. Also, their souls have become stronger because of tribulations. Their understanding of God’s love for them has become more clear. Just like it says in Psalm 138:8:

The Lord will accomplish what concerns me; your lovingkindness, O Lord, is everlasting; do not forsake the works of Your hands.

If tribulation comes, it does not mean that God’s love has left you. It is everlasting! It is not going to change because your circumstances or feelings or anything else that might change. God’s love does not change towards us! It is consistent and regular and always dependable. We have to learn that because we deal with in the human realm with a fickle love. Like, she loves me or she loves me not.

We can be secure in the realm that God loves us. It even says in 1 John, God is love! That is all you have to say. It is His character! We grow in that truth, especially in tribulation and understanding that God keeps you by His power. That should be more obvious because of tribulation. I should have thrown in the towel but the smoke cleared, the bullets stopped flying, and I am standing and still trusting God. You do not do that by your own will power because your understanding has grown that what God has started, He will finish. It says in Philippians 1:6 says:

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

Your understanding that you have a great High Priest who intercedes for you in Heaven. He is preparing a place for you and will bring you where He is. There is an understanding that we do not want to shrink back no matter what tribulations or trials come to us. We have an assurance that the Lord has given to us, so we hold fast to it. We do not want to let it go or let anyone to take it from us. Turn to Acts 14:22 where the Apostles encouraged the saints through many trials:

[They strengthened] the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”

God did not promise us a rose garden. Expect tribulation to come, but also be ready for it. Be strengthened by it when it comes, knowing that God is not going to let you go. Trust the Lord until it becomes more regular and practical, as the Psalmist says in Psalm 37:24:

When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, Because the Lord is the One who holds his hand.

How do you know when someone has received the grace of God? What kind of evidence do you look for? In Acts, Barnabas is in the church at Jerusalem, and news came back that there were a bunch of Gentiles that were trusting in Christ. So they sent Barnabas to go and find out what was going on. Look at what it says in Acts11:22-23:

The news about them reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas off to Antioch. Then when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God.

The word grace here points to the exceptional effects produced by divine grace that God was gaining and granting the free gift of salvation to sinful self-centered pagans. They were changing and repenting of their sin. They were laying down their idols, following Christ, and understanding the Word of God and obeying it. That is how you know grace has come to them. In fact, there is also evidence he gives them in that same passage of Scripture where he says in Acts 11:23:

He rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord.

A resolute heart is one that places something or someone before anything else. He was encouraging them that the purpose in their life is to leave their former sins and walk in righteousness and remain true in the Lord. He said that because there are many temptations to go back to the old way of living. There are many tests of our faiths. There are many launchings of the fiery missiles of Satan against true believers to get them to drift off course. He is warning them not to allow that to happen. You just keep walking with the Lord because we live in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation and we are to appear as lights in the world.

A divine work of grace in your life is the first encouragement to keep on going. Have others seen such a change in you? Especially when you come out of a troubling time, that God is holding you? You should realize that God has to be first in all things. God begins to prioritize your life and you put Him where He ought to be, and you serve Him with a faithful heart. It is to your spiritual benefit and growth when these things get arranged during times of trouble.

There is a second encouragement, turn back to Hebrews 10:35 for this one. It says:

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

The second encouragement is an offer of a reward. As maturing Christians, we have come to understand the reason for not casting away our assurance in Christ. Reward really is a unique Greek word, it means “pay to give” and “be in full.” In other words, “do.” Other translations translate this section like this: the ESV says “great reward,” the NIV says “rich reward,” and another one says “remember the great reward it brings you.”

In other words, it literally means “a paid gift due” that God is going to reward us for enduring. He is going to reward us to endure in order to throw away the great gift of assurance, of pay, which God intends to give in full to us. The true Christian’s confidence has a great reward, which is already mentioned in Hebrews.

The incomparable glory that awaits all who are faithful to the end. In Romans 8:18, it says:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

There is the imperishable inheritance prepared by God for His redeemed people, where he says in 1 Peter 1:4:

To obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.

Then there is the crown of righteousness which is mentioned in 2 Timothy 4:8:

In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.

All who have lived their life in light of Christ’s coming at any moment, and ready for Him to come at any moment. The gold of the world grows dim in the light of His glorious face and wanting to see Christ. If you abandon the struggle, you also abandon the prize. You will see that the fullness of the promise is in the future.

All these things are preparing us for the future race and are leading us to the goal of glory that the follower of Christ is to run the Christian race in order to reach the goal, to finish, and then to receive their reward. No runner reaches the goal without endurance. No runner reaches the goal without practicing, being in the race, eating, sleeping, and thinking about the race. That is what the Christian life is! A race! That is why Hebrews 11 talks about such a great cloud of witnesses.

The author talks about laying down the things that weigh us down so we can run! The master will pay you the reward for your work, the reward for the righteous. God has promised us these things but the fulfillment of these promises are still in the future. We have evidence of grace in our lives and a future of rewards set before us. That is all an encouragement.

But why we are still here and living, we all have this great essential need. Look at Hebrews 10:36, which says:

For you have need of endurance.

This word endurance means to persevere. It means that quite emphatically to persevere under misfortunes, trials, and to hold fast to one’s faith in Christ. The best single example of endurance that I know of in Scripture is Job himself. Even in James 5:11 it says:

We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.

Job was a righteous man but in every single trial and the conclusion of this book is that trials is the school of trust. This is where you learn to trust! It is not always chastisement, but it is always educational. Trials educate us to what God is doing in our life. Job tells us that in all these things, he did not blame God or sin with his lips. And then in the last chapter, God restored the fortunes of Job twofold. But the greatest example of endurance is found right here in Hebrews 12:2, which says:

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.

Christ is our greatest example of endurance. Our greatest need right now on this Earth is to endure in order to run the race. But Satan desires to embitter the saints and misunderstand God’s providences. Satan sometimes uses physical ailments to try and draw people from God. He wants to draw you away from the race and sit on the bench. But believers should not allow any providence to dissuade or discourage himself from service to God, but instead should be emboldened to persevere in God’s way.

Trial is the school of trust. Much distress is a blessing in disguise if it drives one to Christ and teaches the power of faith and prayer.

Overall, God is infinitely wise. Maybe for the child of God, He has ordered it and is in the trial. You cannot just pray your way out of a trial. Just trust yourself to God. Ask Him to show you what He is doing in your life to make you what you ought to be as a believer in this world, so you can be a person who is conformed to the image of Christ. God is infinitely wise. He will do everything that is for your best. Wherever we find ourselves, we should reference Him and should patiently wait for what He is doing in our lives. We all need endurance to hold fast to faith in Christ.

Let us look back to Hebrews 10:36:

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

Notice that the way Scripture captures what is before the followers of Christ is that it is packaged as a promise given in the past. Then look at Hebrews 9:15 which says:

For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

This is the ultimate promise that the Lord gives us, which He promised in the past. No one can change or reverse that. Christ espoused that promise only on faith, on those who trustfully and patiently endure in a way that please God. The will of God is to live by faith. If I ask a bunch of people to define what it means to live by faith, would you be hard pressed to define it and could you give me an example of it?

What does it meant to live by faith? That is a tough question but we ought to know if the Bible is calling us to it. I am talking about faithfulness, after already being in Christ. Faith is not mere consent to propositions about God as revealed in Christ Jesus, the Son of God. It is not just believing that Christ died, was buried, and that He rose again and is coming back. We ought to hold to those and believe those but that is not what it is specifically talking about here in Hebrews.

It is the opposite of swelling pride and self-trust. It is humility before God, a readiness to conform to the will of God, that is why it talks about doing the will of God here in the verse. It is the willingness not to conform to what you think you ought to be, but to what God says. That is faithfulness. Your faithfulness, what God says, and what His will is maybe totally contrary to everything you ever knew. Every feeling you ever felt and every thing the world says about life.

Faithfulness is also a conviction that He cannot lie or fail. It is a deep conviction that God cannot lie to you or fail you. He has to accomplish His promises and finish what He started. It is also a reliance on Him in spite of outward circumstances going on around you.

Christ bestows His promise of eternal salvation on those who are faithful, not on those who shrink back. It is not the prize for human merit or self confidence. It is a continued confidence in God and the only merit in which the Christian trusts is the merit of Christ and Christ alone. It is at this very point that he says we need endurance. But what fuels endurance?

Look at what it says in Hebrews 10:37. It is referenced from an Old Testament prophet named Habakuk. We are going to read some of the things that He says. This is really a major section of the point he is trying to make. The Hebrews passage is this:

For yet in a very little while, he who is coming will come, and will not delay. But my righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

This is quoted from the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. In this book Habakuk is in two difficult circumstances. He is burdened by the unchecked violence in Judah that the people of God are sinning and their sin has contributed to a violent atmosphere on the human level. He is really troubled by it. He cries out to God and God says to him that He will use the Chaldeans as an instrument of punishment.

In other words, God is raising up the nation of the Chaldeans and He is going to use them to punish Judah for their sin.We will look at Habakuk 2 in a second because there is a second problem here. The Chaldeans are more wicked than the Judeans. In his mind God had to raise up wicked Chaldeans to go against wicked Judeans. It does not make sense. But this is how God answers him the second time. He says this in Habakuk 2:2-3:

Then the Lord answered me and said, “Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run. For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay.”

This is the quote he is bringing from the Old Testament and he uses some different wording than what is in the Old Testament, but he is saying the same thing. The prophet is simply telling the people that if they hold fast to their loyalty, God will see them in their present situation. Victory only comes to those who hold fast to what God says. It only comes to the person that is faithful to what God says.

The one who has faithfulness, which must be exercised in relation to someone or something. In this case, the individual is to be faithful to God, to His Word, and to His promises. He must rely firmly upon them and have a deep trust in God Himself, that is His character.

Habakuk lays down a principle instrumental to bringing about the well-being and security of the people of God wherever they live. It is simply faithfulness, that is humble and steadfast and relies upon God’s Word. If he perseveres in faith, he will gain his life. If he shrinks back, he will prove according to Hebrews to be a reprobate.

There is a difference though that I want to point out. The Old Testament passage of Scripture says something in Habakuk 2:4:

Behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him. But the righteous will live by his faith.

It uses the phrase “proud one” to distinguish the person who shrinks back in Hebrews. That is what is replaced there. But the phrase “to shrink back” is actually without discrepancy from the phrase in Habakuk. It defines for us and helps us understand what shrinking back actually means. The same person that is puffed up and proud, who with self-sufficiency is blind to the need of trustful patience and endurance in God’s Word. God promises to deliver him but doesn’t say when He will deliver him.

Habakuk says in response that the proud person is the person who does not trust God. He is the person that believes that God does not know what He is talking about. He does not know why they should wait for anything. In fact look again at Habakuk 2:4:

Behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him. But the righteous will live by his faith.

Notice that his soul is not right within him. In other words, he is not right with God. He is proud. He does not need God or His Word or His salvation or His promises! But on the other hand, look at what it says about the righteous person in verse 4. The righteous person will live by faith, or faithfulness. The righteous person is is counted as righteous before God because his soul is right with God. Something is changed in that person. Because he has a new nature, this person will live by his faith. Here is a person who has abandoned every pretention of self-sufficiency and whose whole life is one that trusts wholly in God.

Thank the Lord that Habakuk was the kind of prophet that believed God and was right with Him in his heart. He was not proud or a prophet that shrinks back because the circumstances look so bad that there was no way he could be delivered from a human standpoint or human intervention. He saw wisdom in God’s promise.

As a matter of fact, this is how his faith is displayed. Look at Habakuk 3:17-19, which he sings when he is without hope. It says:

Though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines. Though the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields produce no food. Though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls. Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and He has made my feet like hinds’ feet. And makes me walk on my high places. For the choir director, on my stringed instruments.

It is a song in the midst of suffering, sorrow, tribulation, and affliction. He is saying that there is no visible blessing anywhere he looks but that God’s promises are still true and that he rejoices in Him only. Habakuk trusts in Him for the right moment and timing. With certainty, He will bring to pass his deliverance. That is how the Hebrews author uses Habakuk.

So to shrink back is to renounce the life of faithfulness. God has no pleasure in this type of person! The great faith chapter of Hebrews will inform us when we get there, that without faith it is impossible to please God! Doubt does not please God. Shrinking back definitely does not please God. In fact those who shrink back in Hebrews shrink back to destruction and through eternal perishing. They have cast off the God of salvation and found no point of rejoicing in His plan because it was too hard to wait. It did not seem like any wisdom at all to wait. Faith is now the life of the heart for the believer, not sight like it would be in Heaven. Faith sees God’s promises coming. Faith becomes the life of the heart until He comes, who will give life to both soul and body. That is the promise that we have. The key to successful endurance and perseverance is faith in God and His promises and salvation. That is the key!

Being a Christian means we have been given a new way to look at life. It is the end of life that make this present Christian process towards the goal all important. This is what our text tells us in Hebrews. Only those that endure to the end will be saved. Those who sit down on the track do not make it to the finish line.

Those who came in faith also continue in it. That is a real believer and that is the point of this passage in Hebrews. I want you to see the structure of the text before us. Look at Hebrews 10:37, which says:

For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come, and will not delay.

So is He returning soon? Where is the evidence? Where is God in the world? There are things going on in Egypt, there is turmoil in the Middle East and destruction all around us. The economy has its bottom dropping out, we may lose everything!

Everything is changing so rapidly that no one can keep up or knows what to say! Has God’s mission changed? Is Christ still coming back with certainty? We know this by faith. God cannot lie and whatever He starts, He completes. We know this because God is true. He is not a liar and will not fail. Can I prove it at all? No! But I am also not called to do this. I am called to trust God.

In Hebrews 10:38, it says:

But my righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

Here is the characteristic of the true believer, they keep going! Here is the perseverance of the saints. Although they get knocked down, they do not get knocked out. Though they are on the mat looking at the ceiling, they also get back up. Christians can say this because they have the Holy Spirit of God in them. They have been listening to God and growing and becoming stronger. They have been taking spiritual weights and pump steel.

Whatever comes their way, they are ready for their enemy, the devil. They take whatever Satan says to them and repeat back what God would say! They can detect the lies. They learn to be a spiritual father, someone who walks by faith. They learn to trust God in all the little things. They see the providence of God in everything.

God is involved in Christians’ lives. They shall live by faith because they have a certain trust in their God. They rejoice in Him no matter what. Regardless of where God calls us, He will also give us the grace to endure at that time and live by faith because our promises from God transcend this life. We have an eternal inheritance and salvation.

Look again at verse 38:

[The lost will shrink back.] And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

The lost will ultimately lose the race, even if they have once made a profession of faith. I am a believer and a Christian but when the trials and tribulations come, they are out. Because we know that He who promised is able to keep that which we entrusted to Him and bring it to pass right to the end, the finish and the goal. This is our great God! That is why we can sing and rejoice!

You can be confident that if there is evidence in your life of a genuine work of grace, and you are ever growing in the evidence that your lifestyle is one of faithfulness. God is telling us to rejoice with these Hebrews. Look at what he says in Hebrews 10:39:

But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

That means that we have eternal life. Just like it says in 1 John 5:13:

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.

What could they possibly take away from you? Your house, car, job? But not your soul and eternal life. That is what it comes down to. In the world we live in, it may come to that sooner than you think. For Christians, objective truth enables us to enter into God’s presence with confidence and those who profess faith in Christ will remain faithful and that gives us evidence that those who are believing are members of Christ’s church, household, and are citizens of Heaven.

Hebrews 11 will continue telling us about this with the great cloud of witnesses that have gone before us and are now with God. This is how they lived and what happened to them. We are to do the same thing. Continue to endure until the end because God is faithful.

Let us pray. Lord, I ask You this morning to strengthen us and our faith. We know how You do it. We pray that you would enable us to endure. We need endurance and allow us to grow in faith so we can be faithful and that person who understands that faith is something that You are pleased with. It is something that is opposite of pride and self-trust. It is humility before You to do Your will. It is a conviction that You cannot lie or fail. It is a reliance that despite how our circumstances look, You will bring to pass all of Your promises.

So Lord, make us strong in the faith so we can please You in all things. Come hell or high water, we will stand firm and not let go of our confidence in Christ Jesus and the so great salvation that You have given us. We praise You for it. I pray this in Christ’s Name, Amen.