"Endurance"

 

Revelation 3:7-13

August 10, 2025

 

⁷ “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:

These are the words of the Holy One, the True One,
    who has the key of David,
    who opens and no one will shut,
        who shuts and no one opens:

⁸ “I know your works. Look, I have set before you an open door that no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. ⁹ I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not but are lying—I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you. ¹⁰ Because you have kept my word of endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth. ¹¹ I am coming soon; hold fast to what you have, so that no one takes away your crown. ¹² If you conquer, I will make you a pillar in the temple of my God; you will never go out of it. I will write on you the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem that comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. ¹³ Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

 

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“If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

 

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!”

 

That’s by Rudyard Kipling, and it goes for the women as well as for the men -- with appropriate adjustments.        

            Strength.  Dependability.  Consistency.  Reliability.  Put into practice, all of those become what the book of Revelation calls “endurance”.

“Because you have kept my word of endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth.”  [Revelation 3:10]

It means more than putting up with the winds of events or stoically shrugging off all suffering and every tragedy with, “This, too, shall pass,” or, “It is what it is.”  It means not getting blown off course by every wind.  It means not chasing every shiny new trend just for its shininess or its polish.

“All that is gold does not glitter. 

Not all who wander are lost.  

The old that is strong does not wither. 

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”

 

Endurance.  Above all, it means to love God, who first loved us, and never to lose track of what that.

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” [I Corinthians 13:4-7]

            The Bible has a lot of tales of endurance, and they’re almost always tales of love.  Genesis 29 tells how, when Jacob was on the run from his brother Esau, who wanted to kill him, he went to stay with his uncle Laban.

“Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was graceful and beautiful. Jacob loved Rachel, so he said, ‘I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.’ Laban said, ‘It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man; stay with me.’  So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her.” [Genesis 29:16-20]

That was patience, and it was beautiful.

“Then Jacob said to Laban, ‘Give me my wife that I may go in to her, for my time is completed.’ So Laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast. But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and he went in to her. (Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah to be her maid.)  When morning came, it was Leah! And Jacob said to Laban, ‘What is this you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?’ Laban said, “This is not done in our country—giving the younger before the firstborn. Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years.’ Jacob did so and completed her week; then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel as a wife.  (Laban gave his maid Bilhah to his daughter Rachel to be her maid.) So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah. He served Laban for another seven years.” [Genesis 29:21-30]

That was endurance, and it was more than patience, and it had both love and integrity built into it.

            Endurance is an aspect of love that persists and does not let go.  Endurance is the love of the Prodigal Son’s father, watching and waiting for his return so persistently that he saw him coming down the road on his way home, long after everybody else had given up on his return. 

Endurance is an essential aspect of Christian discipleship because it is an essential aspect of the redemptive love of Jesus that we depend on to lead us, as it led him, through whatever troubles we face toward the future that God holds in store for his beloved children. 

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,”

says the book of Hebrews [12:1-2],

“let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”