2 Thessalonians 1:1–4

Christ's second coming is transformative. It gives every moment eternal significance and empowers Christians with profound hope, urgency, and purpose. Discover this compelling truth about Christ's second coming through this series in Thessalonians and see how this changes everything.

Go and get your Bible and your new journals and let's take them and get ready to dive into God's Word together. We are in second Thessalonians. It's our first week in this new book, but in many ways it's going to feel like part two of the old series.

We just finished a study in first Thessalonians. It was titled, This Changes Everything. The subtitle matters as well.

It's how Christ's coming compels Christian living. But second Thessalonians, while aiming to the same thing, really hones in on a single aspect or a singular word, and it's the word endurance. Will you say it with me? Endurance.

You're going to find that word, whether it's blatantly or in concept form, just kind of bubbling up in this entire book. In fact, for this second part of this series of these two books, we could even say that the subtitle for second Thessalonians is how Christ's coming compels Christian endurance. It'll be that clear and blatant to us.

This is what this book is all about. In fact, as I was rereading second Thessalonians several times, here's kind of how I see the book unfolding from a bird's eye view. I think chapter one defines what endurance is.

I think chapter two depicts why we need endurance. I think chapter three describes how we show endurance or live enduringly. So the whole book really kind of revolves, I believe, around the word, say it with me, endurance.

So turn to second Thessalonians, you're in chapter one, and let's begin our 11-week trek through this three-chapter epistle. We're going to start in chapter one, of course. We'll be in this chapter for three weeks.

That's because I think there are three natural breaks in this chapter. We're going to see verses one to four today, next week, verses five to 10, and then on the third week, verses 11 and 12. That'll be chapter one, and all of that will point to one main Thessalonian truth.

So we'll be revisiting this truth, rehearsing this. It'll be showcased in every one of these sections. It is kind of a truth that's aimed at helping us understand what endurance is, and here is that in one single sentence.

Here's our Thessalonian truth for this week and the next two weeks for all of chapter one. I'll read it for you. Go ahead and start writing it down.

Take a snapshot of it. Put it in your journals. It's simply this, that faithful, fruitful endurance.

Say that word again with me. Endurance is a sure evidence that God has saved you, and in the end will save you. So pray for increasing endurance.

Now there's a lot in that theological statement that comes from 2 Thessalonians 1. We'll unpack it week by week. We're going to just get the first part of it this week, but this is a very important truth that we're going to see surface and emerge from chapter one. So let's read the first four verses, can we? And then we'll see this very truth kind of bubble up in the first four verses.

Here's God's word to us, 2 Thessalonians 1, 1 to 4. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We ought to thank God always for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, since your faith is flourishing and the love each one of you has for one another is increasing. Therefore, we ourselves boast about you among God's churches, about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and afflictions that you are, say it with me church, enduring.

So 2 Thessalonians 1, 1 to 4, it ends with the word that I think the entire book revolves around. It's the word enduring or endurance. Now, as he opens the book, of course, you see the normal salutation, nothing new for Paul here.

Really, this is something common we see, but it still is important. I mainly love the way that Paul's greetings or opening remarks always point the church vertically in a hurry. I mean, he makes sure their gaze is heavenward right away.

Look what he does. He says to the church of the Thessalonians in God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. He immediately lets them know their location is far deeper than geographical, right? He does mention their city, but he says, here's where you're really, and most importantly, situated.

It's in God. It's in his son, Jesus Christ. And then he repeats that by saying, and because you're in God, because you're in Christ, you have grace and you have peace.

These are from our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's very vertical. All of Paul's opening remarks are usually just this way.

Sometimes he includes mercy. Sometimes he'll include people in the church, but they're very similar. It's just Paul's opportunity to kind of set the stage and get them thinking vertically.

I hope that's worked with you, that you realize that more than that you're in Ankeny, Lamoni, Carlisle, Cornerstone, more than where you are, who you're in matters most. And church, if you are a believer, you're in here, regardless of location, and you have trusted Christ, listen, you are in God, the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's going to matter as we unpack more about endurance.

So just kind of tuck that away as a mental nugget, would you? And he does begin in verse three, right out of the gate, helping you understand really more about endurance. You see, it's the last word of verse four, but it's not the first time he talks about it. He gets right into it, even in verse three.

And I want to spend a minute, if I could just helping you see four ways to look at the word endurance, which ends verse four, but also the concept which saturates all of these verses, verses three and four, this concept of endurance, the word endurance. Let me talk to you about it from four angles or four perspectives. First of all, let me just talk to you about the word definitionally.

You can even say technically, like what does the word mean? Where did it come from? I'm, I'm like etymology. And so I'll just kind of share with you a little bit about how we got to the word endurance, just briefly. It's a compound word in the Greek language, comes from two words.

The first one is up, and it usually is used to describe movement among several things. So there's a movement in an item from lower to higher, and this is happening among other things. So something is seen to be going up, but watch this.

The other part of the word is the word to have and to hold. And so you put them together, you have something that's holding up or something that we're holding up or we're being held up. You could use any of those descriptions in the midst of other things.

So there's things around us, there's things in our surroundings, our environment. And in the middle of that, we're holding up, we're, we're having firmness. We're not caving or bending.

We are staying steady. We are enduring, say with me, enduring. So over the centuries, the idea of holding up, staying steady, remaining firm has become for us a single word known as, say with me, endurance.

So that's some about the technical perspective on the word. One other interesting note about this word that I think will come into play later. This word is always used in the New Testament in the middle voice every time.

Now, if you know much about voices, there's the active voice, which is when you take the action. There's the passive voice, which is when the action is taken upon you. A middle voice is typically a, a combo, like there's action upon you and there's action you take.

This word is always in the middle voice in the New Testament, meaning something's happening to us from God, the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Something's happening in us. We're receiving something and yet there's also something that we are to do in response to that.

More on that later. Just tuck that away, would you? A couple of good notes to kind of put in your pocket as we move now to seeing this concept, this word from a theological or spiritual perspective. This is really found in two words in verse three.

You look at your text there with me, your journals. He says that he's thankful because their faith is flourishing and their love for each other is increasing. So there's flourishing faith and increasing love.

I think that the sense of this text is those two things culminate and help endurance. When there is a flourishing faith vertically, when there's a trust in God, that doesn't stop. Flourishing faith, it's growing, it's deepening.

And then there's a love for each other. It's increasing. So this is more the horizontal aspect.

Something's happening to those who are in my spiritual family. I love them more. They love me more.

We're, we're not ashamed of our connection and identity, whether it's to our heavenly father or to our spiritual brothers and sisters. I think when these two combine, when there's a vertical work of God and a horizontal work in the church by God, it helps increase, and I would even say display the endurance we need as we're standing, holding up, staying firm among all kinds of things around us. We'll get to that part.

Don't worry. But these two things I think are, are elements that are part of the recipe of endurance. God gives us faith.

He gives us love for each other. We receive that. We live that out.

And what results then is endurance. Let me put this to you even more plainly. When I put all this together in the crock pot, let it simmer a bit and kind of serve it to you.

Here's what I think he's saying. That endurance is an unashamed reliance upon and a connection to God and your spiritual family. Endurance really involves owning your identity vertically and horizontally.

It's unashamed ownership of being a Christian and a part of the church. That's endurance. It's really the product of God's work in us and the church's work around us.

So you can help each other endure by, by owning up to your spiritual relationship and the responsibility we have to one another to encourage and help each other endure. This really is the theological framework for how endurance shows up. It's a gift from God and often it's stirred by those around us.

Let's consider another angle. When we think about this word or this concept, think about it from a synonymous point of view, a little odd word to use there. But this same concept, this word is also repeated in this verses, but with two different words.

Look at verse four, would you? He says he boasts about their perseverance and faith, but notice how faith is modified in verse four. It's faith in the persecutions and afflictions that you are enduring. So Paul here says your endurance is equal.

It's the same as your perseverance or your faith. Now understand that perseverance, the word here in verse four is just the word for patience. You could insert patience and be completely biblical.

The word patience just simply means to remain under something. Instead of trying to find a way out, you stay under it because that's where God does his best work. You endure that.

You persevere in it. And when he says faith here, he's really speaking of this idea of staying faithful, remaining faithful. You could use this phrase, you keep believing.

There's a body of beliefs. You hold to that faith and you keep holding to that faith. Make sense? So these are synonyms of endurance, perseverance, faithfulness.

They all speak to the same thing. But I think the most important angle perhaps is the practical angle. Like, okay, Todd, you've had a little moment to be nerdy with us.

You've given us some history, some background, what the word means, blah, blah, blah. But give me some shoe leather language here. Where does the rubber meet the road? What is endurance in the kind of terms that, man, I can just get my hands around? Okay.

It's supernatural stick-to-itiveness. It's supernatural stick-to-itiveness. It's God-given perseverance.

Watch this. God-given perseverance to stay attached in the face of opposition, persecution, or ridicule. It's a willingness to pay the price and the cost of wearing the name of Christ.

You're not trying to find a way out. You're enduring that. You're persevering in that.

You're remaining faithful in that. You're owning your identity vertically and horizontally. Here's what it's not.

And I want to be careful here. I'm not diminishing this other component, but I don't think that's what the text is pointing to. Sometimes we hear endurance and we think about, like, just grit, human toughness, even on the negative side, like workaholism.

Like, man, he puts a ton of hours in. Or they just work around the clock. And we think that's endurance.

I don't think that's what's being pointed at here. This is speaking more of a willingness and an ability given by God to stay attached and connected to the name you wear. I love the fact that this morning's songs lean so heavily into the name of Jesus.

That's the name that we wear. We're God's children. We're followers of Jesus.

We are Christians. And when that costs you, when there's a price to pay for that, what is your reaction? To run and say, no, that's not really me? You're lacking endurance. This is what the text is pointing at.

Supernatural stick-to-itiveness. The God-given ability to own your spiritual identity over the long haul in the midst and face of opposition. As I was mulling this over, my mind went to several moments when we'd get a package in the mail or we buy a product at the store.

And it seems like they plaster stickers everywhere. Most of them come out. Ever get one of those stickers that just would not come off? I mean, you get the goof off, right? You use a half a can to try to get the sticker off.

Or you get a razor blade if it's on a piece of glass. And eventually it does. So the metaphor does break down eventually.

But I thought about all the stickers that took forever to get off. Like that sticker's just, he's not coming off, is he? That's the kind of Christian I want to be. I don't want to peel off easily.

I don't want to peel off ever. Now, when you think about endurance from these four angles, the tendency will be this. To view that and the corners of your mouth start drooping.

It's like, oh yeah, that's what my job is. I got to stick it out. I got to hang in there.

And we get the sense that there's no joy in the God-given gift of endurance. Can I say to you that as I reread these 12 verses, especially 5 to 10, but even in these first four, there's no hint of victimhood in these verses. The tone and tenor is really victory.

There's not a sense of loss. There's a sense of gain. There's no apology for belonging to God.

It's not like he's backing up. Like, I know you got to endure, but in the end, you're like, hey, just kind of hang in there. It might be worth it.

I mean, Paul is so joy-filled in his explanation and even definition of endurance. Man, it is beautiful and it's very convicting. Is my posture of endurance one that is joy-filled? It should be because endurance is God-given.

Again, this is convicting, but here's why it's convicting. It's because the things around us that cause us to be tempted to cave, the things around us that sometimes want us to not hold up, to remain firm, we feel those strongly. And sometimes they seem like joy-stealers, don't they? They are hard environments.

They can be difficult seasons. In fact, they're mentioned here in the text. Let's not overlook this.

He says their endurance, their perseverance, their faith, it's in these persecutions and afflictions. Now hear this. Let me just make this very simple for all of us.

Those are words that describe external pressures. Who here has felt the culture's squeeze? Every hand is probably up, at least internally. You have felt the vice grip of society, of politics, of social media.

Sometimes in those moments, you can almost sense like, do I really want to own the fact that I'm a Christian? I mean, cancellation is always lurking, marginalization, ridicule, persecution. It's these pressures that begin to close in on us. And the aim of these demonic pressures, the real goal of these things which squeeze us, is to get you to detach, disown, deny, to deconstruct.

Do you see what's happening? They want you to rid yourself, shed yourself from your identity, spiritually, vertically, and spiritually, horizontally. I don't go to that church. You thought you saw me there, I was just visiting one week.

I don't claim to be a Christian. We have all these little phrases that we come up with, the culture comes up with, to try to make sure that we can stay approved and liked. Church, in those moments when you feel the squeeze, the external pressure of persecutions and afflictions, I want to encourage you and remind you, stay loyal, connected, faithful, and hold up in the middle of all the things around you.

Endure. Remain steady. God will empower you for this.

Again, as I mulled this over, so many thoughts would just kind of crash land into my brain. Another one was wall squats in wrestling practice at high school. I don't know what you call them.

You call them wall sits. There may be other names for them. We called them torture, actually.

We still do them at the gym I go to. We don't do them as long as we did in wrestling practice, but coach would always, most every day, he'd say, all right, before you leave, he'd either say two minutes, four minutes, or he'd give some number. He'd say, on the wall, and we knew what that meant.

Find a sitting or squatting position on the wall. You couldn't go too low, but you can't stay too high. Get in that area where your thighs just burn, and it starts burning like in 20 seconds.

I mean, think about it. He would say, two minutes on the wall, we'd take position, and if you're eating a meal, two minutes flies by. If you're doing wall squats or wall sits, two minutes is forever, right? And man, you're like, coach, we want to be done.

He would remind us, state tournament, state tournament, state tournament, and in the middle of even enduring those torturous wall squats, there'd be a little bit of joy because everyone wanted to make the tournament. Everyone wanted to win the tournament. We knew this is the price you pay for hopefully a shot at that, so we'd endure.

Now, that again, that metaphor breaks down as well, but you get the point, don't you? There is a sense of difficulty in endurance, but at its root, we know what's ahead, and so we endure joyfully because it's given by God. He is the giver of joy, the creator of joy, so all this comes together from our God, and we can endure joyfully even when the pressures from the outside are squeezing us in afflicting, persecuting ways. God gives endurance to his children, and before we leave this section, these first four verses, especially verses three and four, I want you to notice one more thing.

This idea of joyful endurance and all that goes with its definition in the concept, this is precisely what Paul and Silas and Timothy were boasting about to the other churches. Remember, in verse three, he thanked God for their flourishing faith and increasing love, but the result of that was an outward perseverance, an outward stability and connected to their faith. It was a displayed endurance, and when Paul, Silas, and Timothy saw that, they boasted about them to the other churches.

Now, if you're like me, I'm thinking that doesn't seem like a real pastoral thing to do. It's like a Christian thing, like boasting about people, like bragging about others, like what gives you? What's the deal? Why does that happen? Why can Paul say, hey, I saw what you were doing in your endurance, man, and I'm bragging about you to other churches? What's going on there? Here's why, and ears up, church. Here's why Paul was boasting about them, okay? This will come into play, especially next week, so just kind of, again, this is another note to kind of tuck in your pocket, keep this front and center mentally as we get into the next two or three weeks, but the reason Paul boasted about their endurance is because their endurance was the evidence they were truly saved.

It's one of those sure signs that they belonged to God, that they were born of God, born again, and so Paul and his brothers in the righteousness of the world were proud of these Thessalonians for their faith and their continued stick-to-itiveness to it, their supernatural adherence to the faith, even when it was costly. He was proud of the way their genuineness was showing up. They were proving to be legitimate.

That's what endurance shows. Again, there's more to this in the next few weeks, but this is a very sobering truth to consider, to unpack, because it shows us that when you watch someone detach, disown, deconstruct, you're watching a decision with great ramifications. You're watching someone who's now saying there's no evidence they really belong to God after all.

It's a heartbreaking moment, but it does show us what our take-home truth has said to us. We can see how this truth is emerging from this chapter, even in these first four verses. So here it is again.

Would you read it with me this time? You've written it down. You've seen it. I think now you've kind of sensed it in the text, of course, which will draw all truth from the text.

Will you say this with me? Faithful, fruitful endurance is a sure evidence God has saved you and in the end will save you. So pray for increasing endurance. This is what we pray for, because it's one of the strongest evidences that we belong to God.

Now with that text kind of securely in our head and our heart, we're ruminating on all that it means and could mean, and we're thinking about applications and implications. As I was going through that, I was left mainly with two questions. I suspect these are in the room here.

Let me just address them quickly as we land the plane. I was wondering, well Todd, how do you get endurance? Like it seems like it's pretty important. So how do you actually get it? You said it's a culmination of a couple of things, flourishing faith, vertical, increasing love, horizontal.

But this is kind of the way it's displayed and how God begins to work in our life. But how do you actually get it? How do you know if you have it? Well, here's the simplest, distinct answer. God gives endurance.

God gives endurance. In fact, let me say it's even more theologically succinct. Endurance is a Trinitarian gift.

I believe you get it when you're saved, and it can be deepened, heightened, worked on. Again, it's a middle voice word every time. So God gives it.

We display it, work at it. But we couldn't do any of that if God didn't initiate it and give it to us when we're born again. In fact, let me just show you how it's a Trinitarian gift because every person in the Godhead is involved in the gift of endurance.

Listen to these incredible verses. Just let them kind of blanket you for a minute. Here's Romans 15, 5. Then he goes on to describe how because of this endurance and encouragement, they can live in harmony and then glorify God.

But you notice the first phrase? Who gives endurance? God gives it to His people. Watch this though. In this very same letter, 2 Thessalonians, chapter 3, verse 5, says that there is an endurance of Christ.

Here's the verse for you. May the Lord direct your hearts to God's love and Christ's endurance. That's 2 Thessalonians 3, 5. So grammatically, there is an endurance that belongs to Christ, and so we focus on that.

When He went to the cross, He endured the cross, Hebrews says. But watch this. That also shows us the source of endurance.

That's a grammatical understanding. Some translations even say, the endurance of Christ. So God the Father gives endurance.

Christ models and sources endurance. Watch this. Galatians 5 says that endurance, the word there is patience.

It's a synonym. It's a fruit of the Holy Spirit's work in our life. The Holy Spirit produces endurance or produces patience.

And Romans 5, 5 goes even further and amplifies that the work of the Holy Spirit is a work that produces endurance in us. So guess what? Endurance is a Trinitarian gift, and we believe that God is one in three persons. One God, three persons.

So I say this to you theologically correct, but with every bit of potency that it holds, that every person in the Godhead is working to give you endurance. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, they are completely in to make sure you have the endurance you need to hold up, to stay steady, to remain firm. When the culture and society wants to squeeze you and detach you and tempt you to disown and deconstruct, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, they have got you.

They will give you endurance. The second question was simply this, Todd, what does endurance look like in 2025? Especially June 2025. We're right in the middle of the month.

For some reason, our society has sabotaged what should just be a neutral time of the year. It's a calendar month. It has no sexual or political meaning.

But for several years now, June's become some kind of month to brag about sin and perversion. So let me say to you in 2025, in June of 2025, when you will probably feel the squeeze of the culture more than other months, here's one way, what I would say perhaps is the primary way that you will be able to show endurance in this culture. It's with an unashamed attachment to God's sexual design.

An unashamed attachment to God's sexual design. I said this to you personally. I said it to you a few weeks ago.

I'm not trying to re-hit a subject just out of a soapbox motive. It wasn't the text then. I think at this point, it's wise for us to realize that in this culture, this is probably our foremost squeeze point.

This is probably our foremost pressure point. I can't answer for other cultures outside of our countries. I'm going to speak to you just about the culture I live in.

I'll just speak to you about the generation in which I live. That's the place that God has sovereignly put me, to serve him in this generation. And I can say to you, it seems to me, and this is a little bit of an opinion, I could probably back it up.

I don't think you'll disagree vehemently, but I would say since about the 60s, the sexual revolution has created the foremost pressure point for the church. I can take you back to how it began, even now to where we see incredible perversion. What's sad is, it's become almost commonplace.

It's becoming like that's where people want to run to. They want to detach and disown their spiritual identity, both vertically and horizontally, to make sure that this culture, this society, thumbs up them. So again, how does this apply in 2025? In my opinion, I'm calling on you to endure persecution, marginalization, ridicule, mockery, and scorn when it comes your way because of God's sexual design.

You stay attached to that. Creation order issues matter. You be the sticker that won't come off.

You stay on the wall and do not be tempted to kind of cave with everything around you. Instead, hold up, stand firm, say it with me, endure. I was brought face to face with this over the last two weeks in some unexpected ways.

Some friends of mine have made it very clear where they land on some of these issues, and I was not aware of that. I watched several that I love and know. I consider them friends.

They made it very clear to me that they were now detaching from God and from his family. They gave me a clear, blatant denial of both. Both God's word, God's authority, God's family, and in all frankness, heretically and just openly disowning and intentionally, using these words even, allying with the evil culture.

I think that's a word that has been used more lately for several years is this idea of an allyship. The point is to make sure that everyone around you knows I'm an ally with this perversion. Admittedly, they wouldn't call it that, but the Bible does.

They're no longer an ally with God's perspective. Many of them will ask you not to comment on it, not to talk to them. One told me, don't bring it up.

Don't speak to me about it. I know what you intolerant people say. Do you see what I mean by June? It has a way of intensifying some of the pressure on those who hold to creation order design in regards to sexual matters.

So, as I watched this and pondered it, I'll be very frank with you. My heart broke. I also felt a special elevated moving about my responsibility as one of your pastors.

The Hebrew says we watch for your souls. Ezekiel describes shepherds as those who are on the wall, guarding and calling out danger. So, as I pondered and kind of processed what this whole situation, this allyship seduction with the biblical concept of endurance, I thought of James 4.4. God's spirit began to really, this verse landed on me in ways that is just spiritually heavy.

Here's what James 4.4 says. I'll let you wrestle with this. It uses specific words on purpose that caused me to think multiple times about the danger involved in this allyship phenomenon.

Here's James 4.4. You adulterous people. That's a sexually charged word used intentionally, isn't it? So, if you detach and disown, if you abdicate your spiritual relationships with God in this church in favor of the world, it's spiritual adultery. So, James says, you adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? He concludes that verse with this, whoever wants to be a friend of the world becomes the enemy of God.

Now, I'm not trying to stoke your emotion. I'm not trying to ramp the environment, but I am saying to you, this is a consequential verse. If you're considering detaching, deconstructing, instead endure.

So, I do think this is an issue of eternal consequence. Those are hard words to hear, but let me explain just briefly that when someone remains in opposition to God, that's their long-term posture, then they have no evidence that they belong to God. That's clear biblical teaching in multiple books.

So, an allyship or aligning with the world and not with the Creator, it is an act of disloyalty and defiance. It's a rejection of God's creation order, which is tantamount to a rejection of God's authority. I don't know how anyone can be a Christian and remain in rebellion against God's authority.

God's authority is not a secondary issue that we can differ on. It's not a tertiary matter. In fact, Julie and I, we're in our family Bible reading.

We're in Romans. I think many of you are there as well. It's the New Testament reading plan for this year.

Romans 1 says this, just hear the word of God, much like James 4. Romans 1 says that the usurpation of God's authority is really the suppression of the truth by unrighteous people. So, before you wave the flag of allyship, think twice. Before you try and find a way to make sure no one's ever mad at you or that you don't get ridiculed or persecuted or opposed because of your outdated, old-fashioned sexual beliefs and parameters, before you try to make sure you never get canceled, think three times.

Trading in your endurance for ease could cost you eternally. I admit to you, it can be hard when pressure mounts, especially when it's from close friends and family. I pray for many of you every day who are involved in situations where close friends and family have been seduced in this perverted agenda.

I pray for you. I pray God will give you extreme hospitable winsomeness, great theological clarity, and deep endurance to his sexual desire. I pray that for you.

It's not easy when people choose lifestyles and they go public with what's blatantly unbiblical, when you are described as the hater, the intolerant one. But church, hear this. Alignment with the world is a deadly end game.

Endurance or, in the most practical terms, supernatural stick-to-itiveness is the only real life-giving choice. So as one of your pastors, I urge you, do not bend or break. You hold up by God's grace and power.

You stand firm. Endure. This should be our response.

God, grant us endurance so that we have the evidence we belong to you, because that's what endurance is. It's evidence you belong to him. Otherwise, you wouldn't have any endurance because who gives endurance? Answer the question class.

God gives endurance. So you couldn't endure if he didn't give it to you, if his Holy Spirit didn't empower it in you. It's Christ's endurance.

So he's not giving it to us. We will bend and break. We won't hold fast because we're not being held fast.

If we're not in his grip, we have no grip. This is why the real key to endurance is to make sure you are in the grasp of God, that you are born again, because if you are, you will endure. You may have great temptations.

You may have moments like Peter, but over time, you will persevere and hold up. Why? Because he is holding you up. And this is the essence of Jude 24 and 25.

When Jude says, God is able to protect you from stumbling, that's the opposite of enduring. Remember, enduring is holding up. The devil wants you to stumble, but God is able to protect you and to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory.

So the question is, do I belong to God? Because if you do, you'll have the endurance you need. You can deepen it, heighten it, work on it, but you can't produce it. You just enjoy it and express it.

Do you have endurance? The answer is found in the answer to this question. Do you know God? If this morning you're like Todd, I've just kind of been enduring with grit. I've been kind of, you know, going along because it's gotten me the most cultural benefit, or I've just been trying to hold the line because I'm politically conservative.

I don't even know God, but if that's really what it takes to hold till the very end, man, I want that endurance. Then you need to accept Christ as God's only way to receive forgiveness and be reconciled to God. Would you this morning trust Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and believe in the name of Jesus as the only way to be saved? And in that moment of repentance and faith, asking God to save you through Jesus, confessing with your mouth and believe in your heart that God has raised Jesus from the dead and only through Jesus can you be saved and forgiven.

In that moment, God grants you endurance to stick to the faith till the very end. I think that truth is why I love the song that speaks to that issue more than about any other song I know on that subject. When it comes to endurance, being held by God so that we hold on, being in His grip so that we have a grip, all of that is so well communicated in the song, He Will Hold Me Fast.

Why I felt the lyrics of the song, I'm sure you have. At times you just are done with being criticized. You feel like, can I take one more shot? You feel like it's always the opposite of what actually is.

You want to get out of the crosshairs of the culture's weapons. Your knees begin to tremble. Temptation to detach is lurking.

You think maybe that would be easier. Maybe it's not worth it after all. I've had those moments.

When I fear my faith will fail, here's the news church, Christ will hold me fast. When the tempter would prevail, he will hold me fast. I could never keep my hold through life's fearful path, for my love is often cold.

He must hold me fast. You know it, don't you? Could you sing the chorus with me? He will hold me fast. He will hold me fast.

For my Savior loves me so. He will hold me fast. Stand with me and let's sing these last two verses.

Those he saves are his delight. Christ will hold me fast. Precious in his holy sight.

He will hold me fast. He'll not let my soul be lost. His promises shall last.

Bought by him at such a cost. He will hold me fast. He will hold me fast.

He will hold me fast. For my Savior loves me so. He will hold me fast.

For my life he bled and died. Christ will hold me fast. Justice has been satisfied.

He will hold me fast. Raised with him to endless life. He will hold me fast.

Till our faith is turned to sight. He will hold me fast. He will hold me fast.

He will hold me fast. For my Savior loves me so. He will hold me fast.