The Fruit of Hope: Endurance!

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 22/05/2016 The Fruit of Hope: Endurance! 3 We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our series is looking at Christian hope and this morning the focus is on the relationship between endurance and hope…. On that little end part of v3 “your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Enduring as Christians I take our verse to mean that hope in Christ produces endurance, or that endurance is the fruit of such hope. The question I want to ask is this: How do I keep on going in obedience to Christ? It could be how do I keep living as a Christian in a specific relationship? In my marriage, at work, with friends? It could be how do I stay the course in some form of Christian work or ministry? How do I maintain my faith and a good witness month after month, for years and even decades when so often there are emotional, relational and spiritual obstacles? How do I keep going when normal human encouragements seemingly evaporate and I feel forgotten?

Living the Christian life is hard work.

What does it take to hang in there when the glamour is gone? The excitement of first love fizzles in the end. When the new becomes familiar, it’s no longer as exciting. When one first becomes a Christian there is a fire in the belly, an excitement, a joy, a zeal to get the message out to others. People notice you’ve changed, your priorities change your involvements change. But for nearly all of us, maintaining our Christian walk becomes hard work.

The same is true for various ministries within the church, it’s so easy to start with great enthusiasm, it might be in the music group, or working with our young people on Fridays or Sunday mornings, it might be leading a Home Group, helping run the Lunch Club or Open house, or Ladies’ Group, it might be assisting with the website or involvement with one or other of our mission links – but the joy, the zeal, can wane. There is always drudge work to be done, no matter where your involvement. Work that no-one else will see or even appreciate. Ministry in whatever form is hard work.

The need for endurance Clearly to live the Christian life, to stay the course, to serve in any Christian ministry, requires endurance. Indeed, Paul often compares the Christian life and his own ministry as an apostle, to that of a race or some other sport that requires endurance. In the very last letter he wrote, 2 Timothy in 4:7 he says this, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Endurance is absolutely indispensable in the ongoing life of any Christian and for God’s church, if we are to keep going month after month, year after year, even decade after decade in obedience to Christ. If we are to finish the race and keep the faith. For many of us this means we have to have long-haul stamina so as to endure through any emotional, relational, spiritual or material obstacles God may bring our way – even when it’s unnoticed, when there’s no glory or human encouragement and when it feels as if the joys of life are passing us by.

I guess an easy way to illustrate this truth is by looking at how it is often highlighted by those Christians who go into long-term mission work. They have great joy and enthusiasm in their training and preparation which often reaches a peak when their church commissions them and sends them off. But there is a world of difference between that joy and enthusiasm – and the admiration of others – and the harsh reality of the stress, loneliness and often sickness, some 6 months later in the isolation of the mission field in say Cameroon or Guatemala or wherever.

What does God require of such missionaries? And closer to home, because it’s the same question, what does God require of you in your personal Christian walk, of you in the ministry in which you are involved at church, of you in your marriage and family or in the burden of your chronic illness or disability? He requires endurance.

The great thing is God gives us the means to acquire such endurance. Where does it come from? It comes from our hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we’ve already dealt with the hope of heaven in this series, the hope of being made perfect like Christ, the hope of the forgiveness of sins. Paul says, ‘I thank God for you… for your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.’

If there were no endurance inspired by hope, then the work of faith and the labour of love would not last and would prove not to have been of God.

We don’t live in a generation that puts a premium on endurance in relationships, or jobs, or ministry for that matter. Indeed, the world keeps finding new ways to try to demonstrate that lack of endurance in any of these things is totally acceptable. Perhaps Gwyneth Paltrow’s divorce from Cold Play’s Chris Martin a year ago is a good example? She termed their divorce a ‘conscious uncoupling’ rather than calling it a divorce – trying to say that endurance in marriage is not required, rather we’re like trains that can be coupled and uncoupled anytime as we move along.

We can be affected by this sort of thinking but if we are serious about following Scripture, in this case in terms of endurance, we will be swimming against the tide. But that is what God calls us to.

Endurance and salvation Endurance in the faith is essential if a person is to be saved. But this then raises a couple of very important questions that need to be answered. Is endurance in obedience to Christ a condition we must first meet in order to obtain the inheritance of salvation (heaven); or is the inheritance of salvation already a guaranteed gift so that our confidence in it is what enables us to endure? To put it another way; is the gospel message that you must endure to the end to be saved or is it that you will endure to the end because you are saved? You must endure or you will endure? Well the Biblical answer is actually that you both must endure and that you will endure in order to be saved. Salvation is both the reward of endurance and the free gift of God’s good grace to us.

From my answer, you might have guessed that there are two kinds of Scripture that encourage our endurance. Be sure, both are intended to strengthen and sustain our hope and empower our endurance.

1. Scriptures that say we will endure There are many such Scriptures; one OT example comes from Jeremiah 32:40 Here God promises… I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. Another comes from Ezekiel 36:27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Without using these words, God tells us in these verses that His people will endure in their obedience because He will make it so. Indeed, He will put His Spirit in them so that they can do no other than persevere in their faith. This is a promise of what God will do. A promise fulfilled when Jesus came.

And so in the NT we find such verses as Philippians 1:6 (ESV) And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. God will do it. To the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 1:8–9, Paul says, He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful. In other words, if God calls you into the fellowship of His Son, He will give you endurance to the end. And there are many such verses.

Endurance is a gift and guarantee of the new covenant for all who place their trust in Jesus because it is sealed by His blood shed for us on the cross. So when you feel weak, that you just can’t keep going in your faith, in your ministry, in your witness as a Christian, when you feel God has let you go – come back to the Scriptures and allow God’s grace and power to rekindle your hope. Your salvation, the hope of heaven will never be taken from you and He who called you will make sure you endure in obedience to Christ to the end. He will do it.

2. Scriptures that say we must endure. So we have seen that Scripture teaches that endurance in the faith has been bought by the death of Christ for His people and is guaranteed. But Scripture also teaches that God’s people must endure in their faith for by so doing they will obtain the reward of salvation.

As He describes the end times, Jesus says, “…but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.” Matthew 24:13. Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:12 If we endure, we will also reign with Him. To the Romans he says, Romans 2:6,7 God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honour and immortality, He will give eternal life. If we endure, if we press on in doing good. The same sentiment is expressed in many other verses. So there are these two kinds of texts, one assuring us that we will endure no matter what because we are saved and the other urging us to endure so that we will be saved. Endurance is a gift and it is a duty. And there is no conflict. Both are true. A very similar thing is said by Paul to the Philippians. He starts in 2:12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling And so we see that a Christian is to work out their salvation, another way of saying endure in the faith, with fear and trembling. We are to put in the effort… it is hard going… but Paul doesn’t leave it there, he continues in the very next verse… For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good will. Isn’t that amazing? Work out your salvation, or make sure you endure in the faith – you do it… and when you do, you suddenly realise it is God in you (through the Holy Spirit promised by the OT prophets long ago) who is actually helping you to endure, to persist to work out your salvation. It is God making sure that what He began in you is brought to completion!

No contradiction, just a sovereign and holy God. We will endure to the end, because He is sovereign and we must endure to the end, because He is holy. Endurance is a gift and endurance is a duty.

Those texts that tell us we will endure remind us that our salvation is completely in God’s hands, there is nothing we can do to save ourselves. Our endurance then is not a way of paying for salvation but a way in which we experience God’s grace in our lives. I know some of you have had hard news recently, but that you endure in your faith is because of God’s grace.

Those texts that tell us we must endure remind us that our salvation involves real transformation in our lives. You can’t come to Christ and then continue your life just as you did before. And these texts then also remind us of the great reward that awaits us in heaven, that that is where we should set our hearts and not on the things of this passing fallen world. This motivates us to turn to God asking Him to help us change and become more godly, to do those things that please Him and so we endure in our faith.

In the end both types of Scripture, those that tell us we will endure and those that tell us we must endure, point to the sovereign grace and power of God. Those that say we will do it directly with promises of God’s grace. Those that say we must do it indirectly by commanding us to do things we could not do without grace.

Endurance, the fruit of hope. When we read in Scripture that God will cause us to endure, the aim is that, with all peace and joy, we set our hope on His grace which will bring us to heaven and complete our salvation. And that hope in His grace will give us the strength to endure. And when we read in Scripture that we must endure, the aim is the same: that, with all urgency and determination, we would set our hope on the sovereign grace of God, and in that hope find the strength to endure.

That we will endure is a gentle and sweet reminder to put our hope in God. That we must endure is and urgent and earnest call to put our hope in God.

We aren’t being told on the one hand that we can endure in our faith in our own strength. You must endure. Neither are we being told on the other had that we don’t have to endure. What both kinds of Scripture are telling us is this. HOPE IN GOD! HOPE IN GOD! HOPE IN GOD! For this is the great source of power that enables us to endure to the end of our lives in obedience to Christ. To fight the good fight, to finish the race.

If you put your hope in the sovereign grace and power of God; and not in your own strength, or in the approval of others, or in money, or in fleeting pleasures, or in status; then when the freshness and joy diminishes, when you’re slogging away without anyone really noticing, whether in some Christian ministry or simply in your daily Christian walk, and the praise of others isn’t there, and self-denial and following Christ becomes increasingly difficult, and all the supports that come from others crumble, then you SHALL endure — with the endurance inspired by hope.

And if you have not yet put your hope in Christ I urge you to do so this morning. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, acknowledge your sin, your rebellion against God, let go of the hopes of this world, and put your trust in Christ for the forgiveness of sins, the power to endure, and the hope of everlasting life.

Amen.