as i said tonight there'll be a message beginning considering the birth of christ i wanted to conclude our section here in hebrews 10 this morning so you're invited to turn to 1194 in your bibles i'll be reading at verse 19 to the end of the chapter of hebrews chapter 10 1194 beginning at verse 19 this is the holy word of the lord therefore brothers since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of jesus by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh and since we have a great priest over the house of god let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near for if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries anyone who has set aside the law of moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses how much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who's trampled under foot the son of god and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has outraged the spirit of grace for we know him who said vengeance is mine i will repay and again the lord will judge his people it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living god and now our text but recall the former days when after you were enlightened you endured a hard struggle with sufferings sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction and sometimes being partners with those so treated 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 therefore do not throw away your confidence which has great reward for you have need of endurance so that when you've done the will of god you may receive what's promised for yet a little while and the coming one 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 but we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed but of those who have faith and persevere their souls and there will end the reading of god's word well what we have need of uh in this life is the grace of endurance the grace of endurance have you ever prayed for endurance i doubt that you think much about that little concept we think about perseverance which is in the same vein but do we stop and do we pray for endurance. Probably not a typical thing that we stop and petition of the Lord that we would pray for endurance. One of the most difficult challenges in this life is simply to stay the course in things. You know that about anything in this life. That there is this ever-present struggle and pressure to give up on the thing that has caused you the most difficulty to move away from it to run from it whatever it might be over time you guys all know this people people become worn out and all kinds of decisions are made at that point of great stress and anxiety and difficulty that at times can be absolutely wrong decisions can't they they can be wrong decisions in fact most wrong decisions are made at these moments well there may be something that you can give up on this life without consequence maybe there's something like that that you can do without consequence but there's one commitment there is one commitment in which endurance is absolutely necessary and that is endurance in you'll see this as it's quoted here that crucial little verse in habakkuk that's put in italics there for you that the just shall live by faith there is there is absolute endurance required for a christian to live by faith endurance and living by faith that's the issue that the author now turns to that's the issue that's on his mind that's what's burdening him let me be clear when i say this today before up front you always have to give qualifications today i wish we didn't always have to give all these qualifications for when we these things when we preach but when you're about to hear what we look at this concept of endurance i want to make sure that you understand when jesus said i will not lose any of my sheep that perseverance is also an act of god's free grace whereby he keeps us and preserves us to the end in the salvation that he's won for us in the faith that he's given to us all by grace alone through faith alone in christ alone but there is this important call in the christian life and in sanctification to endurance to give ourselves to this and to be aware of the dangers that are all around us and and that we face in the Christian life. Especially as we have been looking all the way back from Hebrews chapter 2, therefore you must give the most earnest heed to the things that you've heard, lest you drift away from it. That's not enduring. There's drifting. So he's worried about, on the far extreme, apostasy. we looked at the right responses in thinking sacrificially about the kingdom of god and drawing near with a true heart we'll come back to that but then there's the opposite extreme of apostasy and i think what the author does now is take a giant step back to the middle of this and say this is the path you want to be on but also the path that leads to apostasy he's explaining what would lead people to apostasy what's he concerned about well he's concerned that hardship over time difficulty over time is leading some of them to a path and down a path of departure remember you know there's visible and invisible stuff here you can't the author can't read and look into hearts to know who is truly by faith embraced. So you have to speak this way. You have to give these kind of statements. And the great call of this text comes in verse 36. It's so crucial where he says, don't cast off your confidence, which has great reward. There's a reward coming come back to that for you have need of endurance now if some of you were here the other night and you heard dr godfrey preach and he was preaching out of first corinthians and he kept saying one little phrase in that in that uh in that uh sermon not beyond what is written how many times did he say it and i thought to myself i should probably start doing that a little more having a little phrase that i just keep hitting so you make sure you get the main point of the sermon this is it you have need of endurance i'm going to say it at least 10 times how does that work okay at least 10 i won't beat dr godfrey for sure but it's going to be 10 you have in the christian faith and you don't think about it a great need of endurance and we're going to look at this great challenge in the whole picture as it comes to the christian faith his goal here is now after that extreme warning last time to pastorally encourage them that's the goal of this text it's to pastorally encourage them and the way he does this is very fascinating he works from their past he works to the present and he looks to the future and so the three points are sort of organized that way who wants them to consider their past confidence and he wants them to consider their present experience and then he wants them to look at their future the future motivation which is all rooted in you have need of endurance you had need then you have need now and endure for what's set out for you and what's held out for you so he's covering the whole of the christian life isn't he he's covering the beginning to the end here well where we are in chapter 10 is important we've moved to um the great application of the gospel it was encouraging the other night when my family and i were all talking about hebrews and said yeah dad it's i think you finally warmed up in the book i said it's chapter 10 i don't know what that means for the first nine chapters but we have moved to the great application of the gospel and all of the explanation that he's done of the sacrificial work of christ and the shedding of his blood and the realities that we have in christ not in types and shadows as the old testament had but in the realities that are given to us in christ has great application for the present and that's what he's doing now he's helping us with this he's bringing it together for us and remember what he did in in hebrews chapter 10 we had the great therefore therefore you get to come with boldness to the throne of grace you have to look at worship in the church all differently then you're naturally inclined your worship matters you get to come and have your consciences cleansed and have your bodies washed with pure water which is what baptism signifies you maintain the confession of your hope without wavering for he who promises faithful he's going to give you everything that he said and and then he said and consider others stop thinking about this is what i want in the church and this is what i stop that that's immaturity in the faith you have time to grow up we've been looking at that in hebrews this is a great message for the american church today no more thinking like that consider others consider the person next to you who needs you how to stir them up to love and good works it's not about you that's the right response to the gospel and don't neglect gathering together for worship as is the habit of some some are going to always try to justify this they can't do it before god but they're still going to try to justify that stop enjoy this got to change your whole mindset change your world and thinking when it comes to the church and the kingdom of god so we've looked at then he rehearsed the wrong response apostasy that is we looked at abandoning and rejecting it all holding the ministry of jesus with contempt despising the gospel ministry rejecting all of this not wanting any of this well now he backs up between those right response wrong response and he backs up he looks at the whole path and from that he tells us something important to keep us remember the goal is always to help us and to keep us in this from this path of apostasy what do we need you need endurance we have need of endurance what is it that often causes people to defect from the christian faith again we're not saying in any of this that if you have true salvation it can be lost that's that's an impossibility god doesn't take his gifts back if i ask that question though what is it that causes people to defect from the confession the profession of faith it's giving up in the course of your life you know this there are absolute times when you are worn out and you feel like giving up. You know, for them, listen, it was a political nightmare in the first century. All this hardship, they were actually being persecuted. They were facing actual persecution. And they were facing actual pain for following Jesus. And you know what they started saying? It's not worth it. You know, if this is all that the kingdom of God is and this is all the power that it supplies and we can't see Jesus, it'd be better just to go back to the accepted religion of Judaism that doesn't face this kind of persecution. They were worn out. Now what does he do? He knows this. So he goes back to their past. it's surprising what he says in verse 32 look at it but recall now notice notice carefully what he says the former days when after you were enlightened you endured a hard struggle with sufferings that's a remarkable statement that is a remarkable statement he says recall after light had been given to you recall when you had been regenerated or converted and you you knew in your experience that your eyes had been open, light had been shown to you. You remember that? You endured really difficult things then. Have you forgotten that? Sometimes I, you know, want to say this to grandparents. You've forgotten what you used to endure when you raised children, didn't you? You can take our kids and learn that over, can't you? But it's so true, isn't it? As you get older, you just can't do things you did. You wear out. Remember what you used to endure? He rehearses some of it. He says, publicly, you were exposed to reproach and affliction. And sometimes you were partners with those so treated. I recall how many of you had compassion on those in prison. That means that some of these very church members had been imprisoned for the faith. They were being mocked by the culture. They were being ridiculed by the culture. Stupid. Remember that? And then the big one. I think this is meant to stand out in this page to us like nothing else. and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, you did what? We did what? Yeah, you did that. Let that sink in. Can you imagine that being said to an American Christian today? Really? Think about it just for a minute. It couldn't be said. You know, we're, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. You know, then we're good. i don't know how their property was taken by the government or when probably maybe when they went to prison people just went and took it doesn't it just stand out you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property in this life they found themselves in a situation that they could do nothing about you know you can talk big about fighting the government but almost all the time the government's going to win you have two options you imagine here you know how would you get through that you know how would you get how would you get through it if things got that bad that they were plundering our property two options number one you fight or number two you joyfully accept it that's shocking he captures what was their perspective how they could ever joyfully accept that what does he say he says you got through that why Because in your hearts and in your minds you believed you had a better inheritance and an enduring possession in heaven. I'm not sure a post-Miltheonomist could say that today. Their whole perspective was that their home was in heaven. That's how they got through it. They believed that here they had no enduring city. The eschatology, what we say of the New Testament, doesn't make this earth in its current form our home. They got through all the hardship, listen, believing that with Abraham they had a city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God. That's in the next chapter. That's how they handled the hardships. we do it all the time, beloved. This is how you handle the hardships. This is how you've always handled the hardships. What do you mean? What do you mean? Somebody dies. Where are you getting any hope? You get hope from the resurrection. There's a resurrection coming. This isn't it. It's a short time. I get sick. There's hope. This is not the end. I lose everything in this life. I got a better inheritance. That's how we're taught to think. That's how the Lord has framed our minds to think. My question is this today. Does that mean that what they were now faced with was worse? Not at all. You see, the author knows the parable of the sower. When tribulation comes because of the word, remember what Jesus said, many don't endure. They kind of sprung up quickly because they came to Jesus in false pretenses. They thought it was just health and wealth. Everything would be great. And they don't endure when tribulation comes because of the word and they lose things. I think he's looking at them thinking, that's not what I saw in you. Evidence before was, you did endure. You did endure. So what's going on now? Notice what he says. So therefore don't cast away your confidence, which adds great reward, for you have need of endurance now, he says, see? Well, if their present circumstance wasn't any worse than before, why were some on a pathway to hypostasy? Why were they assembling the forsaking and the assembling together in worship as was the manner of some? Why were some doing that? Why were some giving up? Well, you know, if you look over this in your time as a minister, I've seen a lot of people along the way not endure. They don't endure. you just look at generally in life they don't endure in their callings in life they don't endure conflict they don't endure their marriage they're always on the run they're always on the run we have need of endurance in every commitment but there's one commitment that is most important endurance in the faith endurance in the kingdom of God endurance in his church you know what this pathway was it was just said earlier don't give up worship don't give up on the body of Christ yeah it's not glamorous in this life you're not getting the show right now in this life the pathway was one of giving up on christ himself why well oftentimes just through the deceitfulness of sin we looked at that but there's another reason i think you know it faces all of you in your commitment to christ and his kingdom if their present hardships were no different than before what's going on now why are they here the difference was the hardship wore them out it wore them out look at how much weariness people experience you know think of just after this covid ordeal you know we saw a lot of people in just covid life post-covid life not enduring much they didn't endure work endure life some didn't endure life most people lost motivation The long protracted struggles of faith and life. What do people do when you have conflict and it wears you out? Well, what's he concerned about in the church? Withdrawal. Isolation. Retreat. abandoning Christ in the mission. You've had enough hardship, haven't you? And the things you handled better yesterday, you don't seem to have the strength for today. I know it. Some of you are here, you just can't handle things the way you used to, especially with age. It doesn't get easier. It doesn't get easier. What do people do? They check out. they lose a drive in life you realize that the circumstances and the hardships can put you on the same path and we lose confidence in Christ and his kingdom we lose confidence of what we're a part of you have to be aware of this I've seen people who've been in the church all their life and been faithful members and the weirdness of the conflict boom, they're gone over the most ridiculous of reasons. I've seen people early on so invested in the kingdom of God, the conflict has changed them. Where are you today? You have need of endurance, he says. I'm not talking about putting up with stuff. You have need of endurance. It means constancy. Under-suffering, in the faith. Many have noted this has athletic overtones. The author very much uses that in this book. You're in a great contest. You know, runners know this. You have to run with endurance. He's going to say that in the next chapter. Endurance is key for runners. Endurance is key in the Christian faith. You have need of endurance, verse 36. Now notice this. Listen, this is such an encouragement. That after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise. What's he saying there? He's saying this. God has a will for you. You have a real big purpose in life. Your present circumstance is not just happening willy-nilly. There's a great purpose and anyone who's facing depression and anyone who's facing wavering knows that the way out of it is by purpose, is by motivation, is by goal, is by getting up, by knowing why you're here. And notice what he's doing. Do you realize that the hardships, the persecutions, the sufferings, now listen, this is hard for us, they're all appointed until you accept that. You will drift. You think God just dishes out easy assignments? And gives us a cushion to ride on to in the kingdom? He's concerned about the way that they're looking at things. Their decision is retreat. And he says, but God has a will for you. God has a will for you. And he's appointed you to be a member of his church and his kingdom. You have a place. You have a place. It's his will for you to give yourself to that in the assignment that he gave you. Isn't this what Paul said to Philippians? Listen, it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe, but also to suffer for his namesake. belief and sufferers appointed and granted to you. He wants you to look at things this way. That every hardship and suffering is an opportunity to fulfill the will of God for you. Not retreat. To drop off in isolation and bitterness and give up. That's not the will of God for you. You're not handling it right. and the motivation for this is christ himself it was god's will to bruise him for you who endured hardship entrusting himself to the one who judges justly whenever you look at the life of your savior all you see is is endurance and why do we see endurance for you to save you and it was endurance in one thing drove our savior one food drove him every single day. What did he keep saying? To do the will of my Father. Because he knew his whole life was planned out according to the purpose for knowledge, purpose plan and for knowledge of God that he had a divine will to fulfill to save you. Now doesn't that, that's used to incentivize us. You see, don't throw away your confidence is what he's saying. Don't do that. It's going to be richly rewarded. You're going to be richly rewarded. It's a short time. It's coming. You really do. I think the author of Hebrews was a basketball coach. I'm convinced of it. He's a coach. I know we get nervous about it. He's a coach. I know a coach when I hear one. I don't say that in the sort of silly way that it's often used. I know that. How do you stir up one another to love and good works? See, the way of casting off confidence is abandonment, neglect, isolation, departure, loneliness, emptiness, anger, bitterness, and so on. The way of endurance is fulfilling the will of God. And I think that's why the author said consider others. because he knows that you are most happy, listen to me, you are most happy when you are serving somebody else other than yourself. That is renewing. That is energizing. It just is. We have need of endurance. The long periods of hardship and suffering place us on a pathway of casting off confidence. Beware of it, he says. look at how you handle these things before when you were just given the light your present experience is to be the same and then let's close just briefly with this but think about the future just for a minute after you've done the will of god after you've suffered a little while it's just a short time there's a big reward you will receive the promise and he brings together two verses to close this he brings together it's really shocking he brings together isaiah 26 20 just a few words out of that for a little while for a little while it's isaiah 26 20 he pulls that right out of that passage now I'm going to read Isaiah 26 20 listen to it go my people enter your rooms shut the doors behind you hide yourselves for a little while until the wrath is passed by see the Lord is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins he's saying you're not going to face that he's been saying that when the day comes when Christ comes he's going to hide you from his wrath but he singles out for a little while for a little while and he connects it with this and he who is coming, Habakkuk 2 will come and not tarry now the just shall live by faith but if anyone draws back my soul has no pleasure in him what is he saying to you? It's just a little while. Live by faith. Live by faith. I want you to live by faith. The Lord is coming and his reward is with him. And what that means is that in the hardships and difficulties and losses and sufferings, even in the delay of Christ's coming, which is hard in and of itself, you have need of endurance. I want to make sure you've heard me correctly today. I don't for a minute believe that the saints can endure and persevere themselves. He's calling them to it. But when I read you have need of endurance, that after we fulfill the will of God, I also know that's a gift of His grace. And isn't that what the last line is saying to us? Notice how He says it. We are not of those, we are not of those who draw back to perdition. We are not apostates who renounce the faith in hardship. We are not those who give up on Christ. We are not those who despise our confession, even if our property were taken. But we are those who believe to the saving of the soul. That's who we are. That's a gospel statement. and that's meant to encourage you. Jesus said, All that the Father gives to me will come to me, and I will not lose one of them. No matter the surprising, fiery trial that comes upon us, he has said, The Spirit of glory and of God will rest upon us. So we don't lose heart in the struggle. Men ought always to pray and not lose heart, said Jesus. You have need of endurance. So ask him for it. ask him for it didn't he say earlier for whatever your need is he gives you grace and help and time of need if your need is endurance ask him for it lord grant me to endure whatever you have for me give me a content heart with christ his church and worship because in you i have everything i need don't lose heart dear christians it's just a short time just a little while And after you've suffered for a while, he shall himself perfect, establish, and strengthen you in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for encouraging us with what we need. And give us, we humbly pray, endurance. Perseverance. Constancy. You are a rock. You are the immovable one. And so we will trust you. Help us as your people to live by faith and forgive us where we have, Lord, easily departed from what is true and what is right. Keep us by your power in the palm of Christ's hand. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.