"Endure" Part 1 February 11, 2018 AM

Endurance as the Christian Race

If you'll turn in your Bibles, please, to Jeremiah chapter 15. Jeremiah 15, and we're going to be reading in a moment, verses 10 through 21. Let me pray for us. Father, I thank you for gathering us together on this day.

Father, you know our needs before we even ask. You know our need to endure, our need to persevere. You know our frame. You are mindful that we are but dust. And you, as a good, heavenly Father, condescend to give us grace.

Father, you have given us your Son, so we know that with Him, you will freely give us all things. This morning, Father, I ask for the grace to worship you as we look at your word. I ask for the grace to repent, the grace to believe that you would fill us with your Holy Spirit.

That what is inspired in the text would be illuminated in our hearts. That you would thereby transform our lives, renew us to the image of your Son. Lord, we ask for these graces for the sake of Jesus Christ, with whom you are well pleased.

Amen.

Well, we looked at the first part of chapter 15 last week. It's a bit of a challenging message because of Manasseh, we read in verse 4. Despite Manasseh's repentance and the depths of it. Despite Josiah's reform and the extensiveness of it.

God says, because of Manasseh, he will judge the nation. If we fear God, we must expect devastating judgment for heinous sins. If we fear God. If we fear God, if we revere him, if we honor him, if we believe who he is from the scriptures that he has given to us.

If we fear God, we ought to expect devastating judgment for heinous sins. And not be surprised at it. It's a difficult message that Jeremiah is given to preach. And beginning in verse 10 and the following, you can sense the toll that Jeremiah's ministry and the resistance from those around him.

The toll that it's taking on him. You can sense he's having difficulty in trying to keep on with the commission that God has given to him. He is wearing out. He is struggling. But he must endure. We must endure.

Would you please stand with me as I read the passage. Reading verses 10 through 21. Let's give reverence to Christ as we read his word. Woe to me, my mother, that you have borne me as a man of strife and a man of contention to all the land.

I have not lent, nor have men lent money to me, yet everyone curses me. The Lord said, surely I will set you free for purposes of good. But surely I will cause the enemy to make supplication to you in a time of disaster and a time of distress.

Can anyone smash iron? Iron from the north?

Or bronze?

Your wealth and your treasures I will give for booty without cost. Even for all your sins and within all your borders. Then I will cause your enemies to bring it into a land you do not know. For a fire has been kindled in my anger.

It will burn upon you. You who know, O Lord, remember me. Take notice of me. And take vengeance for me on my persecutors. Do not in view of your patience take me away. Know that for your sake I endure reproach.

Your words were found and I ate them. And your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart. For I have been called by your name, O Lord God of hosts. I did not sit in the circle of merrymakers, nor did I exult because of your hand upon me.

I sat alone for you filled me with indignation. Why has my pain been perpetual and my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Will you indeed be to me like a deceptive stream with water that is unreliable?

Therefore, thus says the Lord, If you return, then I will restore you. Before me you will stand. And if you extract the precious from the worthless, you will become my spokesman. They for their part may turn to you.

But as for you, you must not turn to them. Then I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze. And though they fight against you, they will not prevail over you. For I am with you to save you.

And I will deliver you, declares the Lord. So I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked. And I will redeem you from the grasp of the violent. Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.

You may be seated.

The Grind of Endurance in Jeremiah's Ministry

Very few of us realize how much effort, what degree of endurance is required to be an Olympic athlete. Many of the Olympians are not professional athletes. Some of them might be, but many of them are not.

And they have to find a way to live a so-called normal life while training for years and years to get a shot at competing for their country in some sort of athletic event. Anyone who has ever gone to the Olympics, let alone won a medal, is someone who knows the meaning of the word endurance.

I think it is perhaps because of this obvious connection between athletics and endurance that we find that a common illustration in the Bible of the Christian walk. Take, for instance, 1 Corinthians 9, 24 -26.

Paul writes to the Corinthians, the Corinthians who lived in Corinth, who hosted games every two years. Every two years they had games, not every four. And Paul speaks to those who are used to watching great feats of the athletes.

And he uses this illustration to speak about the Christian life. He says in verse 24,. Do you not know that those who run in a race, all run but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.

Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath. They didn't get a gold medal, they got a garland around the head. A perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

Therefore I run in such a way as not without aim. I box in such a way as not beating the air. We are to endure. There is in endurance both the grind of endurance and the grace of endurance. So I read this passage again and again.

It seemed to me that we ought to give due attention to the grind of endurance, to the difficulties that are part of the race that we run. And if we were to move swiftly past that, then we would not understand the grace of endurance like we should.

So this morning we're just going to talk about the grind of endurance. Looking at Jeremiah, the prophet of the Lord called to preach the word of God, called to be faithful to the truth and what he had to endure.

We're going to think about that and we're going to understand it from our own Christian context, the sole hope that we have in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 12, 1 -3 says,. Therefore since we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and he has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. We'll be doing that this morning. I think the central thought for us comes from Hebrews 12, 1.

Let us run with endurance the race set before us. Let us run with endurance the race set before us. I must be honest about the grind of endurance. You see Jeremiah struggling to endure and one of the reasons, the primary reason he's struggling to endure, he says in verse 15, it's because of persecutors.

Persecutors. He says, you who know, O Lord. He knows that the Lord knows. Remember me and take notice of me. He says, take vengeance for me on my persecutors. We need to think about this persecution that Jeremiah is enduring.

We need to think about the nature of the persecution and the names of the persecutors. And when we think about the nature of the persecution, we find these two words in verse 10, strife and contention.

Strife and contention. In the Hebrew, these terms are most often associated with legal action. It is as if Jeremiah, the prophet of God, is going through a horrendous divorce with Judah. So much so that the interactions between them have been reduced to suit and countersuit.

And he sees himself as a man of contention and strife to all the land. So that it's him versus all of them. And while Jeremiah preaches the word of the Lord and draws the people's attention to the law of God, they in turn respond by trying to find some legal grounds by which to execute him.

And you may imagine that after a couple of decades of that, you get wore out. There's also part of the persecution. We see the term reproach. The term reproach in verse 15. Also the term curses. Everyone curses me, he says in verse 10.

Jeremiah is receiving the word of the Lord and he is proclaiming the word of the Lord. And so often what God is saying to his idolatrous, immoral, and unjust people, he is giving them a rebuke. A rebuke.

What you are doing is wrong. You are destroying yourselves. Stop it. And that's what Jeremiah is preaching. Thus says the Lord. So he gives the Lord's rebuke and Judah in turn gives him a reproach. Judah is saying to Jeremiah, you are the one who's doing wrong.

You are wrong to tell us these things. You're making us feel bad. You are being critical of our lifestyle. Jeremiah, you're the problem. You're the only one stirring up any fuss around here. Judah reproaches him.

Jeremiah would see the blessings of God return upon his nation. He knows what it's going to take. Repentance and a return back to the Lord. He would see the blessing come back upon his fellow citizens.

And they in turn curse him for the labor that he gives them. Strife and contention, reproach and cursing. Indeed, they fight against him. They wage war, we find in verse 20. God says, they will fight against you, though they will not prevail.

They will fight against you. Judah foolishly engages in a two-front war. They set themselves against Babylon and ready themselves for the coming armies. They will fight against Babylon. But at the same time, they fight against Jeremiah, the prophet of the Lord.

Even as Babylon would send its armies and lay siege to Jerusalem, so also Judah lays siege to Jeremiah. And they hope for his silence. And eventually his surrender. That's the nature of the persecution.

What about the names of the persecutors? What are their names? Verse 11, God names them, the enemy. Surely I will cause the enemy to make supplication to you. Who is the enemy? Not Babylon, not the Assyrians.

Judah, the leaders, the kings, their officials, the false prophets, the reprobate priests, the citizens of Jerusalem, the people of the cities of Judah, they are the enemy. They're the ones waging war against Jeremiah, his fellow citizens, his neighbors, his relatives.

Do we not learn from Christ in Matthew 10, 36 that the cruelest kind, when it comes to persecution, the cruelest kind is the closest kind? It's not that which launches from afar, but that which lashes out nearby.

The cruelest kind is the closest kind. We've already read in Jeremiah that the men of Anathoth, Jeremiah's own hometown, are plotting to murder him. They can't stand the preaching of God's word. They are the enemy.

They are the wicked and the violent, verse 21 says. They are the wicked and the violent from whom God will deliver Jeremiah. So Jeremiah is facing persecution from the enemy, but this is no passive aggressive enemy with veiled insults.

This is a wicked enemy, a violent enemy, and Jeremiah was often in peril of his life. You might understand why the persecution would wear him down. This is part of the grind of his endurance. Persecution is part of the race we've run.

Jesus made that clear when he told the people what it would mean to believe in him and to follow him. He did not hide the fact that they would be persecuted. He let them know right up front. Persecution is not in the fine print in the Bible.

It's not an exception to the rule. All those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution, Paul says to Timothy. It is part and parcel of the race that we run is persecution. When we are targeted by means of the legal system, Christian cake makers are going to be going out of style very quickly.

When we are made to look troublesome, cursed as a blight upon society, reproached for our backward beliefs and intolerant convictions, accused of child abuse if we do not teach our children that they are random accidents come from monkeys.

When we are mocked as unfailingly stupid and hypocritical, don't you think it grinds us down a bit? We should be clear about our terminology. The disinvitation of Ken Ham to UCO was not an unfortunate misunderstanding brought on by some intolerance.

That was blatant persecution. It's called persecution. Persecution is part of the race that we run. Our own countrymen, our own neighbors, even some of your own relatives lay siege against us, hoping for at first silence and then at last our surrender.

But notice why the persecution comes against Jeremiah. It wasn't because he had a bad personality and just couldn't get along with people. Look there in verse 15 at the very end. He says, know that for your sake, for your sake, I endure reproach.

Look at verse 16. I have been called by your name. That's why he was suffering persecution. Because of his allegiance to the one true God, because he was filled with the words of God to speak the truth.

It is because of Christ that we are persecuted today. Jeremiah preached the exclusivity of Yahweh and the coming judgment, saying there's only one true God. Stop worshiping the idols, and there's a judgment that's going to come.

And guess what?

Today we are persecuted when we preach the exclusivity of Jesus Christ, that he is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through him. And he is certainly, suddenly, and soon to return on the day of judgment.

And that message is targeted again and again in our current day and age. We need to run with endurance the race set before us, and persecution is part of that race. And if we're going to run with endurance, we need to do what Hebrews 12, 1 through 3 says.

We need to fix our eyes upon Jesus. Fix our eyes upon Jesus Christ, because he is our example. He is our example. And say there in verse 3, For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Fix your eyes on Jesus. See what he endured. I mean, he's the master. We're the servants. Are we above our master? Should we expect and demand and engineer situations just so that we won't have to suffer as much as Jesus did?

He's the master. We're the servants.

He's the teacher.

We're the students. Are we above him? Is our job in this world to make sure that we don't suffer like Jesus did? No, he's our example. It means that when we're persecuted for the sake of the truth and the sake of Christ and the sake of the gospel, it should be an encouragement that we're on the right track.

We're following Jesus. No wonder there's persecution. We should set our eyes upon Jesus, who is also the one who is our expectation. He defines our expectations. I don't know what you expect out of a Christian life, but Jesus tells us what we're to look forward to.

He says in Matthew 5, 10 through 12, he says, Blessed are those happy in God are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed, happy in God are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil about you because of me.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets, like Jeremiah, who were before you. Reward. He said you're on the right track. You're moving in the right way.

There are good things to come for those who suffer for my namesake on this earth. So keep on. You're not doing something wrong. Don't believe their reproach. Believe Christ's promise. Set our eyes upon Jesus Christ, our exaltation.

Does it not say in Hebrews that he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God? Here's the good news. When we endure all the way through the end, what happens? We're revealed with him in glory, Colossians says.

We will reign with him forever, Revelation says. He is our exaltation. He's the reason why we will be those who are low will be brought high. He's the reason why. So fix our eyes upon Jesus. Persecution says we're on the right track.

Now, of course, beware what Peter says. If you suffer for doing sin, what's the point? Meaning if you suffer persecution because you were rude and obnoxious and unloving, well, that's on your own head.

But when you suffer for the cause of Christ, it shows you're on the right track. A second aspect of endurance, part of the grind of endurance, is isolation. Did you see that Jeremiah is isolated? He's isolated in a particular way.

Verse 17 says, I did not sit in the circle of merrymakers. He didn't go to parties, probably because he wasn't invited. Would not have added to the atmosphere. I did not sit in the circle of merrymakers, nor did I exult.

Why?

Because of your hand upon me I sat alone, for you filled me with indignation. Another sense of isolation you hear in verse 19. God says at the end of that verse, they for their part may turn to you, but as for you, you must not turn to them.

Sound kind of curious? What does he mean by that? Well, you saw back in verse 11 that God said, I'm going to work all this out for your good, Jeremiah. In fact, by the end, the enemy, kings like Zedekiah and Jeconiah, even though they're wicked, they're going to be turning to you with some degree of respect and saying, Jeremiah, what's going to happen next?

Can you give us a clue? They hated the guy, but they respected him. And they knew that he would tell them the truth, even though they didn't want to hear it. And the enemy, who would often want to see him dead, would often check in with him.

Say, what is the word from the Lord these days? They would in some sense turn toward Jeremiah, but Jeremiah was not to turn toward them. Meaning, when the enemy, when those who were rebelling against God and wanted to be approved in their sin, when they turned to Jeremiah in a way to show him a little honor, show him a little respect, Jeremiah was not then to turn back to them and say, oh, yeah, I kind of see you.

You're kind of a nice guy after all. Oh, well, I'm not going to be so hard on you anymore. He wasn't supposed to change the message just because the attitude shifted kind of positively towards him. Do you see that?

When we talk about isolation, I want to be clear. Isolation is a double-edged sword when we use it in terms of our endurance. Some folks figure on enduring for Christ off-grid, out of touch, hidden away, hermits for Jesus.

Not that kind of isolation. The kind of isolation we're thinking about here is the kind that Paul talked about in 1 Corinthians 5, 9 through 11. He's dealing with some turmoil inside of the church. He said, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with immoral people.

I did not at all mean with the immoral people of the world or with the covetous or swindlers or idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother, if he is an immoral person or covetous or an idolater or a vile or drunkard or swindler, not even to eat with such a one.

So what Paul is saying is, you need to stop providing tacit approval and acceptance of those who are inside the church and living rebellious lives against Christ. Stop giving tacit approval to the dishonest businessman.

Stop giving tacit approval to the man who's committing adultery against his wife.

Stop it.

Don't pretend like everything's okay. What about Jeremiah? This is the kind of situation he has going on as he's surrounded by prophets, priests, the kings who sit on a throne of David, all those people who should have been in the know and doing the right thing, but they weren't.

And so he had to refuse from giving tacit approval to their sin, to their rebellion against God. That kind of isolation. Jeremiah was not isolating himself to hide away from persecution. I'm going to hide so that nobody ever says anything bad about me.

He was being persecuted because of his public isolation. He was out in public, he was out and about, he was giving the word of God and saying, I refuse to give tacit approval to the ways in which you're sinning against God.

And because of that, he was being persecuted. Too often, too often, we try to find ways to hide. It's a Christian Chinese proverb that says, it is the nail that sticks out which gets hammered, which is their way of summing up what Jesus said in Matthew 5, verses 10 through 16, when first he says, blessed are you when you're persecuted, and then says, you're the light of the world, you're the salt of the earth.

Don't hide. Don't hide. Try to avoid persecution. But isolation, this kind of isolation where we refuse to give tacit approval is essential to the race that we run. Just by the merits of looking at the world around us through a Christ-centered, Christ-exalting perspective, we're going to end up going against the grain, rowing upstream.

We're not going to be a part of the pack. And there's this constant kind of isolation. The temptation, of course, is there in verse 19. The temptation is to any degree, if those who reject Christ and those who are against him, those who wish to live in sin and they want God's approval or they want everyone's approval, if they in some way lean towards us, the temptation is to say, oh, yeah, okay, so it's not so bad.

Such is the depth of the sinfulness of desiring to please men in our hearts that we're willing to compromise. We're willing to compromise the truth. The temptation is to change, soften, modulate our beliefs so as to gain some more acceptance.

In the name of reaching more people, in the name of being more relevant, we keep changing what we believe. Oh, okay, so it's intellectual suicide to believe that God created everything in six days and rested on the seventh.

It's intellectual suicide to believe in the unity of the human race through Adam and Eve. It's intellectual suicide to believe in original sin, and we must believe that we are somehow accidents and random mutations and that we're all just slightly evolved primates.

That's what we've got to believe, and so the Christian church, so the evangelical church continues to say to one another, we're being isolated, we're being persecuted because we believe something that nobody else seems to believe, so we're going to change what we believe.

Evangelical leaders of the highest type say to one another, we must agree that Genesis 1 and 2 and a whole lot of other stuff is just myths. So also, we can't believe what the Bible says about the roles of men and women in a family.

We can't follow that. That's something that's not for us in our day and time. We can't believe what the Bible says about women in leadership in the church, that they can't be preaching from the pulpit, so we've got to ditch that.

Oh, wait, now we've got homosexuals getting married. We've got to support them somehow, and we can't say what the Bible says about that anymore. We have to address those who believe they're some other type of gender or personality that we've got to give them their due by using the pronouns they tell us to use.

Why? Why do we do these things? It's not because the Bible told us to. It's not because Jesus Christ is leading us to. It's not because we're convicted by the Holy Spirit. We are just scared of persecution, and it has become the prime directive of the church in North America to avoid persecution, where our brothers and sisters and Christ all over the world are losing their homes and their jobs and their families and their lives for Christ.

And meanwhile, we sit back and make compromise after compromise because we don't want to end up like them. Jeremiah has to endure. He has to endure. If he doesn't endure, if he doesn't keep saying the truth, what's going to happen?

No truth would remain in Judah. He's the only one preaching the truth. What happens if he compromises? There's no more truth in all of Judah. What if the church compromises in North America? Then no more truth will be said in North America.

We are the church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth. God, Paul says to Timothy, so what are we supposed to do? Follow Christ? Follow his example? Remember Jesus, he wasn't scared to be out and about, was he?

He wasn't scared about what people might say about the people he hung around with. He certainly wasn't isolated in the physical sense, was he? But you know, you see him going from one place to the next, and what were the things that he would say to people?

Come to me, and they're like two steps away. What does that mean? How much closer can I get? Enter into the kingdom. I don't see a doorway. What are you talking about? He wanted them to be with him. While I'm right here, what do you expect?

These are spiritually spatial terms. Jesus remained isolated even among all the people. An example of that is in John 2. John 2, verses 23 through 25. Jesus has begun working signs. He's begun to talk about who he is and share the message a bit.

Verse 23, it says, Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the feast, many believed in his name, observing the signs which he was doing. Oh, wow, this guy is awesome. Look at all the things he can do.

But Jesus, on his part, was not entrusting himself to them. Oh, Jesus, you're getting positive reception here. They kind of like you. But he was not entrusting himself to them, for he knew all men, and because he did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for he himself knew what was in man.

Prime example, now we enter the story of Nicodemus. Nicodemus, who was positive on Jesus, but not believing that he really was the Christ, the son of the living God. Jesus continually was out and about among the people.

He was in the world, but he was not of the world. He was isolated from them in such a way that he kept on saying, come. He kept on saying, enter. He kept on being with, meaning repent. Repent from what you believe about what it takes for you to earn salvation and go to heaven.

Repent from the ways that you look at yourself and make excuses about all of your sin before a holy God. Repent of the way that you've been believing and living and believe in Christ, the good news, the Messiah, who is the righteousness of God.

Isolation. Isolation is essential, an essential part of the race that we run, because without some kind of isolation, without some kind of isolation as the church, we have no ability to preach the gospel.

When you erase the line between those who follow Christ and those of the world, when you erase the line between the church and the world, there's no place for them to come. There's no place for them to enter.

There's no meaning anymore about being with Jesus, because it's all about whatever you want to believe is fine as long as you believe it. I was going to say the church that continually tries to become more relevant will soon cease to be so, because we've got a message to preach, and we have to stop trying, we have to stop fearing isolation, and we have to say, Jesus Christ is the son of the living God, and he is the only way to the Father.

He is the only Savior for the world. And if you want to know what may happen, you want to know what happens to those who die without Christ, I am not going to avoid persecution and say, oh, well, you know, I have to work on a need-to-know basis, and God hasn't told me, maybe there's some trapdoor, you know.

The Bible says, the Bible is clear. We have to run with endurance the race set before us. It's not easy. Suffering persecution is not easy. Suffering isolation is not easy. But we have to set our eyes upon Jesus and his worth.

He's exalted at the right hand. How much is Jesus Christ worth? Consider it from the context of Hebrews 12. A great cloud of witnesses, read chapter 11, a great cloud of witnesses who went through so much and suffered such persecution, for one whom they had never seen, and even all that they had were the shadows of the Messiah, but they suffered and died for him anyway.

What a great cloud of witnesses. They showed through their lives how much they knew Jesus Christ to be worth. So let us run with endurance, because he's worth it. And set our eyes on Christ and his will.

He's the one who authors and finishes our faith, beginning and the end, the initiator and the completer. He's also the author. He's the author of our faith. We cannot be said to endure. We cannot be said to be enduring in this Christian walk if we take what the author has written and take the penknife out and begin to hack away until we get rid of any catalysts to persecution.

We need to stop saying, in essence, as a Christian church, we need to stop saying that, well, Jesus Christ might be the author of our faith, but we're the editors because we know how to make it sell. Well, when you suffer persecution and when you suffer isolation, sometimes you just get depressed.

Depression, Doubt, and the Joy Set Before Christ

Aren't you glad you came this morning? But look at Jeremiah. What is he struggling with? Do we not struggle with some of the same things? Depression, verse 10. He's Job-like in verse 10. Woe to me, my mother, that you have borne me.

He's bemoaning his birth. Just what Job said. Verse 17, Jeremiah can't be filled with merriment because he's so full of indignation. Verse 18, Jeremiah suffers as a man of sorrows. His pain is emotional and continual.

His suffering is spiritual. It is a wound festering in his faith. He has questions and he has beliefs, and he has no idea how they can be reconciled. Circumstances that he's experiencing in his life seem to lacerate the deeply held doctrines in his soul.

He can't stop the bleeding. Doubt is infecting his prayers. He looks to God and he's wondering, God, are you like a wilderness wadi? You flood me sometimes, fail me other times, and there's just doesn't make any sense.

Is God's providence nothing but the divine yanking of my chain? So you look at the prophet and he's off balance and he's uncertain. He's struggling with depression, and if you've been a Christian any length of time at all, you know of what he speaks.

You know of what he speaks. Depression is a part of the race that we run. Sometimes depression can be more associated with physical impairments that we may have. Sometimes it's just not something physical and chemical in the brain.

Sometimes it's self-centered myopic moping, which ought to be repented from. But there is a spiritual kind of depression. There are such things as great difficulties in the Christian walk. Spine-jarring whiplash to our souls must be endured.

There will be long journeys where you haul empty sacks, all labor and no reward. But it produces in us a different kind of fruit, the fruit of endurance. Now we need to endure, run the race set before us with endurance, and it was for the joy set before Christ that he endured.

It was the joy set before Christ that he endured. What joy set before us? What joy set before us? It is Christ who was set before us. Fix our eyes on Jesus Christ. Depression will put us on the dirt face down.

Can't move very well. Why even get up? Why go on, go through more? Christ is set before us as our joy. We must run with endurance the race set before us. He's worth it all. Circumstances may blast us unanticipated, but Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

May this word resonate in our souls today.

Let's pray.

Father, I thank you for the opportunity to be fed from your word and how your word has fed my soul this week. Father, we need help. The temptation, the temptations are so strong. Help us to endure in the right way.

We would endure in love and endure in kindness and endure in mercy and endure in truth, to endure in holiness, to endure in our submission to your clearly revealed will. Help us to endure. We thank you for your son, Jesus Christ, who is fully sufficient for this calling.

We pray these things in his name.

Amen.