Patient Endurance

Well, thank you for those slides with me, and thank you for our technical team who made that made that possible. You know, when I finished the Feast of Tabernacles this year, eighth day, evening, and then the next day, I was disappointed. I was disappointed, and in fact, I'm disappointed each year. Disappointed that it has been another year, that Jesus Christ has not returned. I don't know if some of you have sometimes felt that, because we celebrate these future events of the fall feast days. We prepare for them.

We talk about the distinction between the spring holy days and Pentecost, which are events that have already occurred, that we celebrate these salvation events of history, and then we pivot to the fall holy days, where these events have not yet happened, and we're celebrating a future event.

We're looking forward to a future event, and we, you know, we save our tithes, and we talk about the meeting of these days, and we fast on the Day of Atonement, and then the feast comes, and the gifts, and the fun, and the time, and we get to do things we haven't done before, and things that we can't necessarily afford during the year, and we have these messages, and we have the fellowship, and Bible studies, and then we come back home, and we're back into our routine, and we're like, why can't it just be real?

Why can't it just be here? Why can't Christ just come back? And so, I deal with this, and I think that some of you might be able to relate to this. You know, I want the real event to happen. I want to see this poverty, and again, you know, we all deal with different levels. You know, people I shared with you, some pictures of people in the congregations there in Lomé, and in Mon, and in Cote d'Ivoire, and so forth, you know, they're farmers, or they're working at that research station, and they have a certain level that they have to operate in, but you know, the poverty is there.

The risk of getting sick is constantly there. As I shared with you before, one sign when I was in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it said, it's very easy to confuse the symptoms of Ebola with the system, the symptoms of malaria, and that's not a sign we'd have in this country, because we're not easily confused by having symptoms of those diseases, because those aren't diseases we really have in this country.

And so I want that poverty, that victimization, that kind of injustice to be removed. I want to get off the the treadmill of division in this country, the inequality, and the injustices, and so forth. And I want Jesus Christ to return. I want to get caught up to heaven with him, with the saints when he comes back, and I want to be part of this millennium. I want to get started in getting this stuff fixed, because it's not going to get fixed until he returns.

And instead, the feast ends, and we come home, and and then not only that, but now we've got this COVID situation that got a little bit worse after the feast. And it can be discouraging, and it can be a little bit disheartening to go back into our routines. Especially, and I don't know if you've been able to do this, but I really try to unplug from all this stuff going on. You know, sometimes you forget what day it is. Is this a Wednesday? Okay, we got the Sabbath.

You're kind of marking time by the day. This is the fourth day of the feast, the fifth day of the feast, and the Sabbath during the feast. And then you come back from the feast, you're like, oh well that happened, and this happened, and you're kind of like, oh, and and if you kind of start getting back into that, I could feel like, oh, I don't want to get into that. I don't need to be distracted by that. I want to kind of keep that vision of the feast going.

And so today I'd like to talk about an antidote to this discouragement. Some kind of antidote about what the Bible calls patient endurance. I want to talk about patient endurance. Patient endurance helps us to keep going year after year, looking for inspiration, looking up for inspiration, like, God, help me through this coming year, looking forward to see where we're going, and also just looking down to make sure we're not going to sprain our ankle along the way.

Patient endurance really gives us all of these different tools that we'll see from the Bible to run the race that is set before us. That's the analogy. That's the imagery that the Bible uses. No matter the, as it were, the spiritual weather that's going on around us.

It might be getting hotter and hotter, and we're feeling the pressure. It's humid, and we're sweating, and we're like, how can I run with this kind of heat and this pressure on me? I don't know if I can do it. And if there's obstacles, and we're like, I can't run right now, and I've got a problem, and I've sprained my ankle, or there's something in front of me, and I can't get around it.

And so with this in mind, I wanted to share some biblical passages. We're going to go through three biblical passages, which I think really speak to this and reveal to us God's desire for us to patiently endure. Patiently endure, especially coming off the highs of the Feast of Tabernacles and the Fall Hallway Days. And when I'm done, I hope that you'll be able to deal with any sort of disappointment that you might have, some post-Feast let down that might be coming your way, and that you'll be able to really just re-engage or engage in the work that God has for you to do, because we each have work that we've been given. And that's what the Bible says. We have been given work to do by God. I learned a new African proverb on this trip, and it goes like this.

An old man can see farther sitting down than a young man standing up. And I thought that was an interesting proverb about the wisdom of age, the wisdom of age. And sometimes I think we rely too much on our own vision of what's ahead, like that young man standing up thinking, yeah, I can see, I can see way down the, I know what's coming. The old man sitting down is like, no, you don't see what's coming. The old man knows. The old man's kind of been through the movie a few times, and he knows. And I think sometimes we might rely on our own thinking, instead of really looking to our Creator, who knows the end of the movie and knows where we should be going, and is really the oldest among us, and has that vision of how we move forward. And so I want to connect us into that vision today. Let's begin by looking at how Christ commanded us to watch and wait for His return in Mark 13. Turn with me to Mark 13 verse 3 to start out. Mark 13 verse 3 will get the context, because we are told to watch and wait and anticipate the return of Christ.

If we don't do that, we are not fulfilling what God has told us to do.

Certainly, for many of us, that means being on our knees and praying for God's urgent intervention.

For some of us, that means doing that, plus being very plugged into the news. For others, it means being very plugged into what's going on with our brethren around the world. It can mean different things to different people. But let's see how Christ describes this in Mark 13 verses 3 and 4 to get some context to what He says. Mark 13, 3 and 4 says, Now as He said on the Mount of Olives, opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked Him privately, Tell us, When will these things be? And what will be the sign when all these things will be fulfilled?

We tend to not read Mark 13. We tend to read Matthew 24. That's the more famous parallel to or synoptic gospel to this. But Mark 13, I think, has a very personal and intimate discussion.

If you imagine, He's talking to these four disciples. And basically, they're asking the same thing I'm asking. God, when are you going to actually make this happen? We celebrated the feast.

When are you going to return? What's this going to look like? And so in the verses that follow, He shares a summary of events that are going to lead up to His return. And they're the same summary that if you're familiar with Matthew 24, He goes through. Nation will rise up against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be earthquakes in various places. It says in verse 8. If you go over to verse 14, He talks about the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet. And we get into a lot of prophecy. And we talk about that in Beyond Today and some of our programs. And we can look in Daniel 11 and Daniel 9. We can see Daniel 2 and the image there that's described. And he goes through all these events. And then in verse 24, then he actually talks about his return. In verse 26, he says, Then you will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send his angels and gather together his elect from the four winds, from the farthest part of the earth to the farthest part of heaven. That's it! That's what I keep saying. God, when is that going to happen? I want to be part of that. That's what he says in verse 27.

And boy, I would love it if he just almost stopped right there. But he doesn't. In chapter 13, he doesn't end the chapter. Well, he didn't do chapters, but he doesn't end the thought.

In verse 27, he ends it in verse 37. There's 10 more verses. And we have to pay attention to those final verses. Verse 28 to 31 gives an indication of basically, will you be able to see the signs of the times that are coming? But in verse 32, he gives an admonition to each and every one of us, to us today and to those people at that time. In verse 32, and it's tough, to me, it's a hard truth.

This is a hard truth to take. Verse 32, but of that day and hour, no one knows.

Oh, I just can't stand that verse. I mean, no one knows. No one knows, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father. So he says, look, don't get focused on the time.

I'm going to tell you something more important in verse 33. Take heed, watch, and pray, for you do not know when the time is. And then he gives an analogy to help those disciples, Peter, James, John, and Andrew, and us to understand what we should be doing while we're anticipating this event, while we're heating, watching, and praying. It is like a man going to a far country who left his house, verse 34, and gave authority to his servants, comma, and to each his work, comma.

That's a very important phrase, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch.

Watch, therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming in the evening, midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning, lest coming suddenly he finds you sleeping.

And what I say to you, I say to you all, watch. Verse 34 says, to each his work, to each his work, each of us must do the work that God has assigned us as we watch for his son's return. We have something we have to do while we watch, and heed, and prepare for that time.

And we should be found doing it, because the contrast he makes is sleeping. See, doing is not sleeping. I don't know if you've noticed that. When you sleep, you are not doing. Maybe you're doing sleep, but you're not actually productive in that sense when you're sleeping.

The work that God has given us is to prepare for his return, prepare personally and as a body.

Now, when I was in eighth grade—I'm going to take you back to the personal story—when I was in eighth grade, I remember distinctly thinking about the return of Jesus Christ, because I grew up in the church, and I remember hoping that Christ would return before I had to go into high school, because I was dreading high school. I'm telling you, if you're in high school, I mean, that is like the hardest thing. Be kind to people in high school. That is so hard. You've got so many weird pressures on you, and your body's changing, and people are mean, and your classes change every year, and you don't know what you're going to do with your life, and everybody asks you all the time, and you don't know what to say. I was in eighth grade, and I was struggling a little bit in school, and I just thought, oh man, if Christ could return, I could just skip that whole thing.

You know? And, you know, look back, it's kind of funny, but I mean, I was very serious, and of course, at that time, if you knew about the world, which you forgot, we talked about different dates of when Christ would come back. And there was this date floating around called 1982. It was 1982.

I was too young to get the 1975 thing, so this was 1982. 1982 was going to be a really important year. And I thought, oh man, I can't wait till 1982. That is going to kill me. I'm going to be like a junior or sophomore, and what am I going to do? And so, in my mind, I was thinking, this is going to get me out of something that I don't want to do. And we all have different reasons why we want Christ to return, but that was one of my reasons when I was a kid. And, you know, I think that sometimes we may want Christ to return because we don't want to do something that we really need to do. We'd like to just kind of skip some part of our lives. And I think the reason that it's so easy to want to rally around a date—we've rallied around dates as human beings in the modern area. 1844 was the Millerite date. 1917 was a big date for the Jehovah's Witnesses.

1975 was a big date for the former worldwide Church of God. And even today, in different sort of other smaller groups, dates are getting set all the time. I see—oh, yeah, next Thursday, I mean, literally, I'm not making that up. It's going to be, you know, in 24 hours, 48 hours.

It's so easy to go into some kind of date because I think what it does is it takes our mind off the real work of preparation. Because instead of thinking about what we've got to do to prepare for that, we just think about that date. Okay, let's see. So if it's going to be—I remember 2012 was a date that was floating around for a while—it's going to be 2012.

Okay, let's see. So that's in like three years. So I'm here, and I'm going to do warming. And so what you do is you start kind of planning around that date instead of just focusing on what you really should be doing of preparing, like finishing high school. In my case, I mean, if I look back on it, okay, I needed to finish high school. I needed to mature to a point where I could understand what God was really doing in my life, and I could be baptized. And I could kind of figure out what life was all about. And so that was what I needed to be doing when I was in eighth grade. I needed to grow up, and it was going to happen. It was going to be painful, and I was going to do it. I was going to make it through, and I was going to get help, and I was going to start my life. That's what I needed to do when I was in eighth grade. For those of us who are older, it means asking God, what am I supposed to do right now? What am I supposed to be doing right? What is the lesson I am supposed to be learning right now so that I can be in your kingdom? What is my deficiency? What is my gap? What is the problem that I have that you see, that I don't see, that I've got to fix, or maybe I see it, but I don't want to look at it and focus on it? That's the preparation. Let's look at how Jesus describes this in Luke 8.

Turn with me to Luke 8, starting in verse 1.

Luke 8 and verse 1, and we're going to see this word, patient, endurance, show up, and we're going to see this preparation that I'm talking about show up here.

It says in Luke 8 verse 1, Now it came to pass afterwards that he went through every city and village preaching and bringing glad tidings of the kingdom of God. That's kind of an old way of saying he was proclaiming the kingdom of God would be coming. He was announcing the kingdom of God.

So again, the context of this verse is the kingdom of God, just like we read in Mark. The context is the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him. And a certain woman, who had been healed of evil spirits in Fermini's Mary called Magdalene, and of whom had come seven demons, and Joanna, the wife of Chusea, Herod, Stuart, and Susanna, and many others who were who provided for him with their substance were there. And so he basically is kind of setting the stage that there were these people with them, and he was proclaiming the kingdom of God. And then in verse 4, we're told about what part of this announcement meant. And when a great multitude had gathered and others had come to him from every city, he spoke by a parable. And he gives this parable, a sower went out to sow his seed, and he sowed some fell by the wayside, and it was trampled down, and the birds had the air devoured it. For six some fell on rock, and it was it sprung up, but it withered. For seven some fell among thorns, and the thorns choked it out. And verse nine, but others fell on good ground, sprang up and yielded a crop a hundredfold. And so he gives this parable. And so the obvious question is, well, what does this mean? What does this parable mean? And that's what the disciples wanted to know. And so they asked this question in verse nine, what does this parable mean? And so he says, well, I'm going to tell you, you, my disciples, what this means. But for everybody else, this is just going to be kind of an unknown thing. And so in verse 11, he describes what this parable means.

And he says, now the parable is this, the seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are ones who hear, then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. The ones who are on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy. And those have not, and have no root, who believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away. And the ones, verse 14, that fell among thorns, and those who, when they have heard it, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity.

In verse 15, but the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience. So this is kind of, you think about like a game show, behind door number one, you have the wayside. That's, don't pick that door.

That's not going to lead. Door number two, the rocks. Also not good. Door number three, the thorns.

Again, not good options. You're not going to be able to be prepared for the kingdom of God, and be in God's kingdom. And finally, door number four, the good ground. And those who hear will produce a hundredfold. But it adds something in there. It says, they bear fruit with patience.

And that word, patience, actually is a word that's translated better. Patience, patient endurance.

It's the Greek word, hypomene, h-u-p-o-m-o-n-e, hypomene. And it means endurance.

It means steadfastness. It means patiently waiting for.

Word help study says that hypomae comes from two words, hippo, which means under. If you have hypothermia, you have hyperthermia and hypothermia, it means you just can't, you're under. You can't quite get your temperature where it needs to be. It's under. And meno, which means remain or endure.

So under during or enduring. And it says, especially as God enables the believer to remain or endure under the challenges he allots in life. It means that there are challenges that come our way. And when those challenges come our way, we are able to patiently endure those challenges to move forward, as I said, seeing where you're going, looking for inspiration, making sure you're not tripping or twisting an ankle or something along the way.

And those who hear the word, who fall on good ground, will bear fruit with patient enduring.

So we bear fruit, but it has to be with patient enduring.

You know, we'd all love to see success. We all want to see success, right? But anything worth working for is going to require patience and endurance and perseverance. And that's what we're talking about. This is a life lesson, and it's a spiritual lesson.

Now, we often look at things going on around us and how they impact our lives. And we say, how could this be happening to me? How could this be going on right now? Why do I deserve this?

Or why does our nation deserve this? How could this be happening to the people that I love?

And yet, I wonder sometimes if God, in his response, doesn't say, how could this happen any other way? How could this happen any other way? We think this is unusual.

And God probably looks at it and goes, well, that's what I want to happen.

You see, it's not God's world, but it's God's plan. That's what the distinction we have to make.

God has given this world over to the adversary, and we see all sorts of terrible things around.

But God has a plan, especially for his first roots. And so, as we go through these things, and we're thinking, man, God, why is this happening? God's like, well, what do you mean?

This has to happen. This is about bearing fruit with patient endurance.

And if you think about a hundredfold increase—just think about that for a second—you put a hundred dollars into a business, and you get ten thousand dollars out. That's pretty cool. Who wouldn't like that kind of return? Put that in your 401k. A hundred dollars in, ten thousand out. That's a hundredfold increase that we're talking about. It's substantial. It's a lot.

The world wants to win the lottery. That's what the world wants.

Get it now. Pay my buck. Get my hundred. But God's people want patient endurance to produce a hundredfold. Now, maybe that's not what we want, but that's what our calling is.

This is our calling. This is the kingdom of God. This is the context to what he's describing.

And so throughout history of war, of famine, of plague—we're getting a little taste of plague—just a little taste, not a big taste, just a little taste of deception, of civil unrest, God's people have produced a hundredfold. And I can see that in Africa, too.

They actually literally go through famine, and they endure, and they produce a hundredfold.

Let's turn to Hebrews 11, and let's see this Hall of Faith and how this turns out. This is the third passage as we describe this patient endurance. Hebrews 11 is obviously the faith chapter.

All sorts of discussion of people of faith, incredible stories of faith and patience and overcoming and triumph. And we see that all the way through, whether it's Abraham or it's Sarah, it's Moses. And then we get down to the end of Hebrews 11, verse 32.

And after the author has specifically discussed these individuals, he sort of summarizes in verse 32 and says, and what more shall I say? Hebrews 11, 32, For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Berwick and Samson and Jephthah, and also David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of the sword, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to fight the armies of aliens. Women received their dead, raised to life again. All of this is pretty heady stuff, pretty amazing, pretty high highs. But now, here in verse 35, there's a pivot, there's a change in tone, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. And then in verse 36, the thought continues, still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains, and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in tube, were tempted, were slain with the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented. So, I didn't really sign up for that, but maybe I did. Maybe we all did. Maybe we all did. If you look at the summary of the faith chapter after these great high highs, and now these triumphs, but in a different way, the summary is very interesting in verse 38, of whom the world was not worthy.

They wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth, and all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promises. They didn't receive the promises. They're going to inherit the kingdom of God, but they didn't receive it in their lifetimes.

In verse 40, it says, God, having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. We are in this together, is what this is saying. This is the summary of the faith chapter. All these incredible stories are all tied into our story, and they haven't received the promise yet, because when we receive our promise, we're all in this together, them and us, as we walk together to inherit the kingdom of God. And so with this thought in verse 40, the summary of verse 11, the author then turns his attention to us, us here today, for those this was written to long ago. He turns from the spiritual ancestors to us today, and he gives us this direction in chapter 12, verse 1. Therefore, given all these things that we are together, therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, all these stories, all these people, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with patient endurance. Same Greek word that we looked at in Luke. It's the same concept in the parable of the celibate. Let us run with patient endurance the race that is set before us. Upomeni. Patient endurance. This is our calling. And notice two things about this calling to run with patient endurance. It says, laying aside every weight. Now, sometimes we can say weight is sin. Don't get bogged down by sin. Cast that sin off. But that's not what it's talking about. Because right after that, it says, and the sin, which so easily ensnares us. No, every weight is not talking about sin. There are things we do that are not sin that weigh us down and keep us from running forward, that keep us from looking up for that inspiration. What are those things that are not sin? We have to look at our lives. What things are weighing us down, keeping us from running forward, keeping us able to progress the way we should. You know, sometimes we can get wrapped up in things. It's not necessarily sin. It's not necessary. It could be. It might go too far, and then it turns into that. But there are things that we do that distract us from our high calling.

They distract us from where we should be going, what we should be doing, and the author says, get rid of those things and get rid of the sin, obviously. If there's sin in our lives, get rid of that too, because we've got to run with endurance. And verse 2 says, we don't have to do this on our own. We don't have to do this on our own. We look under Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

This is where I talk about looking up for inspiration. We look to our Savior, our elder brother, Jesus Christ, to guide us on this race, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despised the shame, and it sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. We pray.

We look up and we pray to God, and we ask for that direction. And we know that Jesus Christ ran his race as a human being and was attempted in all points as we were.

And verse 3 says, for consider him who endured such hostility from sinners. Have we endured hostility? Do we live in a hostile work environment? Do we live in a hostile area?

Hostility from sinners against himself lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.

You see, I can become weary and discouraged after the feast because I'm like, when is this ever going to end? When is Jesus Christ going to come back and just get this thing set straight? I am tired of seeing all this injustice and this inequality and this inequity and this poverty and this slow-moving train wreck that we see around us. But you know, if I walk around thinking that, I'm not looking up, I'm not looking forward, I'm not looking down. I'm just kind of in my head.

And Christ says in the parable of the sower that I've got work to do to produce fruit a hundred fold. He says in Mark 13 that I've got work to do as I watch. And we see here in Hebrews 12 that I'm supposed to run a race, and if I'm in my head, I'm not really running the race. And we look to Jesus Christ as that example because he himself endured—there's that word endured, it's not the same as the patient endurance in the other verses—but it's the same concept.

He endured those things, and because of that, I don't need to become wary or discouraged, another to you. And I hope that as we come back from the feast then, we can be getting on our knees, especially now at this time, and say, God, what's that hundred-fold increase with patient endurance that you're looking for in me? What is that that I've got to do? How am I contributing to the body that you have created here that you've put me in? How am I going to be part of that?

What is my role? What is my mission? What should I be doing? And I think Mr. Cubie gave a great message on Christ the servant during the feast. I think that gets to this concept certainly as part of what is being described. We don't have to do this on our own. We have Jesus Christ there in God's Spirit to help us and guide us through these things. I hope that we can run the race as we come back from the feast, that we can run the race casting aside every weight, casting aside sin that might slow us down, that will slow us down, and that we can produce a hundred-fold as we watch and wait for the return of Jesus Christ.