Call for the Endurance of Saints

Have you ever imagined the risen Christ, seated on heaven’s throne, as an observer, you might even say a spectator, of your life? 

Not unlike how we might sit down to be a spectator of our trivial pastimes — like baseball, basketball, soccer, college football — Jesus watches the whole of our human lives, and all that transpires. And in particular he looks with special interest for how we, his people, exercise patience and bear up with endurance in conflict and trial, and in temptations to give in and quit.

I emphasize patience and endurance because I read a provocative quote this week from Puritan pastor Thomas Goodwin (1600–1680). First, he notes that Christ is “the Chief Master Orderer and Designer” of all the conflicts and obstacles that come into our lives and require endurance. Then Goodwin says this about Christ:

He sits in heaven as the great Spectator of these jousts and tournaments, which are to him as spectacles which are sports to us.

In other words, as we might watch a big game, Christ watches us, and is especially interested when we encounter obstacles. When you feel tempted to give in, to give up, to conform to the pattern of this flighty, flaky, flimsy, noncommittal, impatient, non-enduring age, do you ever consider that Jesus is watching, and that he stands ready to help?

To be clear, he is not watching disinterestedly or with apathy. He’s not folding his arms and simply observing what we do, ready to judge it. Rather, he leans in. He frees his hands. He dispatches his angels. He pours out his Spirit. He fulfills his promises. He brings to life his word. He gives us his ear in prayer. He gives us a body of fellow believers.

Spectator as we might imagine him to be, the risen Christ is no mere observer. He himself, the paragon of divine and human patience, stands ready to help. To feed our patience. To sustain our endurance. To lift drooping hands, strengthen weak knees, and make straight paths for our feet (Hebrews 12:12–13). And to take pleasure in us as we answer his call to patient endurance, helped by his Spirit. As Goodwin says, “You cannot please the Captain of your salvation . . . more . . . than by a patient endurance.”

So, brothers and sisters, here is a call for the endurance of the saints (Revelation 13:10; 14:12). In times that are increasingly flighty, flaky, flimsy, noncommittal, impatient, and non-enduring, let’s be a counterculture at Cities Church. With the risen Christ in view, and buoyed by his Spirit, let’s patiently endure in our daily meditation on his word, and in prayer, and in marriage or singleness, in the long-haul of parenting, in our jobs, in our life and community groups, and in our covenant commitments as members of this church. Let’s not fold in face of conflict and resistance. In Christ, by the Spirit, together with his people, let’s be a people who patiently endure in the callings he’s given us.

Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, we own that many of the great failings of our age are failures of patience and endurance. As a generation, this is not our strong suit. And yet, in Christ, we long not to be numbered with the tendencies of our times. We long to be numbered with him, who endured the cross, and with his saints, who endure with the help of his Spirit. Father, make us different. Give us spine. Give us holy grit. And do it for us together as your church. 

We bring before you now our own failures of patience and of endurance as we confess before you our sins in this quiet of this moment.

Father in heaven, make us a church of men and women who, in Christ, patiently endure. We don’t want to cave and flake and fold like our generation. We want to experience the true life which is won through, and goes hand in hand with, patient endurance. We want to please Jesus by fulfilling his callings, and honor him by enduring, with joy, in his strength and by his Spirit. And we long to do that together as his church. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.