On this episode of The Lead On Podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the SBC Executive Committee, discusses the vital biblical concept of endurance and its profound meaning for ministry leaders and Christians. Discover how endurance, rooted in God's Word, is a Christian virtue, a source of hope, and essential for spiritual growth.
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Welcome to the Lead On podcast. This is Jeff Ords, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, talking with you once again about practical issues related to ministry leadership. And these are late winter podcasts, and so I continue to have some challenges with my voice, which means I speak in a very low tone. That's my good radio voice, I suppose. But I'm glad to be with you today.
Jeff Iorg:I'll apologize just once for any weird noises that come out as I battle the congestion and try to get through the podcast. Well, today, I'm gonna break one of the podcast rules. It's my podcast, so I guess I get to do that. I've told you many times that this is not necessarily a preaching or teaching podcast, although I'm a preacher, so occasionally, I, do start preaching on the podcast. But today, I do wanna do some teaching.
Jeff Iorg:I have been studying a particular word in the New Testament, and I've been studying it because of what has happened to me over the last year, some of the life changes I've been through, and some of the challenges I've been, working with. And so this has become a very personal and important study to me. In fact, I've spent months on it and finally taught it the first time a week or so ago, and the response was very gratifying. And so I think I'm ready to start sharing it now, and I'd like to do it today on the podcast by helping you to understand the biblical concept of endurance. The biblical concept of endurance.
Jeff Iorg:Now, this became an important study for me because as most of you know, about a year ago, I was, set to retire from Gateway Seminary as president. I had served for twenty years in that capacity and for more than forty years as a Southern Baptist ministry leader. I had, for most of that time, been an organizational leader of some consequence, and frankly, I was ready to step out of that kind of life. Now I wasn't retiring from ministry. I wasn't going to stop speaking or writing or teaching, but I was going to stop the daily grind of organizational leadership.
Jeff Iorg:But God intervened. And instead of moving me into that kind of a retirement ministry, he moved me into the presidency of the SBC executive committee, which is quite frankly the most demanding and difficult organizational responsibility of my lifetime. In the context of doing that, I had to find new depths of spiritual resource to sustain me, and God started speaking to me from his word from various passages as I was reading through the Bible about this theme of endurance. And so I decided to do what preachers do, study the Bible and see what it had to say on this topic. I was quite frankly surprised that I had never studied this word particularly, and that when I looked back through my sermon note files over really several decades of preaching, I didn't find much on this theme.
Jeff Iorg:And when I had preached on a passage which included the word endurance, I tended to move on from it fairly quickly or gloss over it without giving it much attention. And so this was for me a fresh study, and I started by, going, to the Bible and looking for all the different passages in the New Testament that use the word endurance, which led me then to know that I needed to go to the Greek word, which is translated endurance so that I could make sure that I'd identified all the passages that needed to be studied. Now I make no claim to being a Greek scholar. In fact, I'll make the claim to the opposite. Yes.
Jeff Iorg:I had several years of Greek, and I have a passing understanding of the Greek language, but I, it is not my specialty. But I have friends, and those friends would say that, that they are Greek specialists, and they are Greek scholars, and I'm glad that they're willing to help me. So I asked one of my friends to work with me to make sure that I understood the Greek word that is translated endurance, and it's the Greek word or
Jeff Iorg:Now, this word is from two words. The first one is hupo, and the second one is minnow. Now, the first word means beneath or under,
Jeff Iorg:and the second word means remain or continue. So taken together, the word means continuing or remaining under whatever load or burden or circumstance we may find ourselves. So means continuing or remaining under whatever load or burden or circumstance
Jeff Iorg:we may find ourselves. Now,
Jeff Iorg:that's a very important word for all of us in ministry leadership because whether you're in a role like I'm in today or whether you're a pastor, ministry leader, elder, deacon, Sunday school teacher, whether you're a mom or a dad trying to lead a Christian family,
Jeff Iorg:you find yourself under a load or a burden or a circumstance. Endurance means that you continue or that you remain, that you don't quit, give up, or bail out. And so this word translated endurance in the new testament
Jeff Iorg:is a very important word in our lives. So I wanna share with you on the podcast today some things I've been learning about what the Bible teaches about endurance and some application I'm making and see if it won't encourage you along the way. The first thing I've learned is that endurance is rooted in God's word. Now, I forgot to say this at the very beginning, so let me say it now. I'm gonna reference a lot of scripture today, and I'm gonna go by it fairly quickly.
Jeff Iorg:So if you've got a pen handy, you might wanna jot these things down as I'm saying them, then you could go back later and make your own study of these passages. So the first thing I want to say is that endurance is rooted in God's Word. It says this in Romans fifteen four and five, so that we may have hope through endurance and through the encouragement from the scriptures. This passage teaches that God gives endurance and encouragement through the scriptures. And then, first Peter one twenty five says that God's word endures forever.
Jeff Iorg:Now the first thing I want you to understand about endurance is, it's not about being tough.
Jeff Iorg:It's not about just gridding it out. It's not about just holding on. No. Endurance is about grounding yourself in God's word and clinging to God's word, believing God's word, holding to God's word in every circumstance and situation.
Jeff Iorg:This is so liberating.
Jeff Iorg:I formally thought erroneously that endurance meant just manning up, just bucking up, just being tougher, just holding on, just not giving up.
Jeff Iorg:But now I've learned that endurance is about facing my circumstances and then trusting in God's word to sustain me through whatever I'm facing. God's word is the foundation for endurance. So rather than thinking about enduring as I've got to be tougher, think about enduring as I've got to go deeper in God's word. Over this last year, I've had some of the most enriching times of reading the Bible that I've experienced really in my lifetime, where I see scripture blooming out of the page and thrusting itself into my into my awareness and showing me how God can sustain me in the daily grind of the work I'm now
Jeff Iorg:doing. Oh, there have been so many of these, and it's been so strengthening to know that what's keeping me going is God's word
Jeff Iorg:because it's God's word that gives me the encouragement, the Bible says, and the endurance to keep going, and it's God's word that lasts forever and the only thing that's gonna sustain me no matter what I'm facing. So I wanna challenge you to ground yourself more deeply in God's word. Get up and read the Bible on a regular, if not daily, basis. I did this morning. I woke up this morning, and I was really frustrated and discouraged about a particular situation.
Jeff Iorg:And I opened my Bible to my next chapter of bay of Bible reading, and wouldn't you know it? Right there in the scripture, there's truth that speaks directly to the circumstance that's discouraging me, and it tempered me. It strengthened me. It redirected me. It corrected me emotionally because I read the bible, and I let the bible do its work in shifting my perspective.
Jeff Iorg:Man, that's happened to me over and over and over again, but it's reading the Bible on a regular basis, and then it's doing what I'm telling you about today. It's studying the Bible on a particular issue or concern or struggle that you may be having. Endurance has become an important word to me this year because it was something that I felt I needed in ways I had never needed before, and so I've been pouring myself into this study really for months and thinking about it, working on it, meditating over it, mulling it into my life. Endurance is rooted in God's word.
Jeff Iorg:The second thing I've learned from my study is that endurance is a Christian or a church virtue. Now,
Jeff Iorg:there's a lot of places where there's a list or a catalog, if you will, of Christian virtues like Romans twelve:nine-twenty one, two Corinthians six:four-ten, one Timothy six-eleven, two Timothy three ten-eleven, Titus two:two, Revelation two:two-three, Revelation two nineteen, Revelation three ten. These are all passages of Scripture that have lists of Christian virtues or lists of church virtues, and those virtues all include the word endurance. Now I I have to honestly tell you, I've missed that over the years. Like, for example, first Timothy six eleven says we're to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Man, I've preached on righteousness.
Jeff Iorg:I've preached on faith. I've preached on love. I've preached on godliness. Believe it or not, and if you know my personality, it's a believe it or not. I even have a Bible study that I've taught on gentleness.
Jeff Iorg:But in all these years, all that list, I never taught about endurance. Never really even thought much about it.
Jeff Iorg:And in all of these passages I've mentioned, that word is included and stands out. One of the days that God spoke to me clearly about this was I was preaching at a church in New York State, actually, and I had been there to speak in the state convention meeting and stayed over to preach in on a Sunday in the church, and on that Sunday morning, the pastor and his wife are reading the Bible through chapter by chapter to their congregation as a part of their Sunday morning worship service. That particular day, they were reading Titus chapter two, and that passage begins with the verse that says older men are to be self controlled, worthy of respect, sensible, and sound in faith, love, and endurance. And the pastor's wife was reading that verse as she and her husband were alternating the verses for the scripture reading, and when she read that verse, I didn't hear any more that was said after
Jeff Iorg:that. All I heard was older men are to be models of endurance, and the Lord spoke
Jeff Iorg:to me in that moment. This, Jeff, is for you. This is a verse you need to be paying attention to. Well, I've always thought about these other things, self controlled, worthy of respect, sensible, sound in faith, love. All those things are things I've thought about before, but never that last word, endurance.
Jeff Iorg:So these are the ways that God has helped me to see that endurance is a Christian or a church virtue, and it's one that we should celebrate. You know, I think about some of the people I've known over the years and how heroic they've been to me and how I may have failed to celebrate that along the way. I just wanna tell you about one woman. Her name is Sherry. I met her and her family when they walked into our church in Oregon to visit on a Sunday morning.
Jeff Iorg:There were a couple of, teenage children, and then there was a third child who was in a carrier, like a baby carriage, except it was a little larger. When I met the family, I was introduced to the husband, the wife, and the two children, then I looked into the carrier, and
Jeff Iorg:I said, and what's your name? And the person in the crib was not able to speak back
Jeff Iorg:to me, but his mother said his name and introduced him to me. And I later learned that he was their oldest child who was, at that point, almost 20, but still had the body of about a four year old and the mental capacity of a several week old child. This family ultimately became part of our church, and the entire family became very dear to us. But the mother particularly became a model for me of endurance because for more than two decades, she had cared for this child in their home, and the entire family had come together to support all that was needed to provide for this very special one who'd come into their family. I had one of the most meaningful services that I ever participated in was on a right to life Sunday when everyone is talking about how much we're against abortion and how we celebrate every life.
Jeff Iorg:But Sherry stood up and shared her story of caring for her child for more than twenty years, who was severely challenged both developmentally and intellectually. You could have heard a pen drop.
Jeff Iorg:Because now it wasn't just a theory of being for pro life, and it wasn't about protesting, and it wasn't about laws. It was about every person in the room asking the sobering question, do I really believe this? That every life matters. And how do I respond to this incredible example that's being put before me today of a mother who has endured so much because of her conviction that every life matters?
Jeff Iorg:Look. People that have endured like this, who have borne, in some cases, decades of the challenge of obedience to God and of living for him despite the challenges and the circumstances,
Jeff Iorg:the difficulties and the problems that have been theirs, but who have endured, who have remained full of faith, that's what faithful means, who have remained full of faith, who have remained steadfast in conviction, who have been unwavering in their commitment. These people are models of endurance. And I celebrate Sherry today, but I have to tell you I have failed to celebrate this quality enough in my ministry and in
Jeff Iorg:the pastoral guidance I've given to others.
Jeff Iorg:Oh, I've celebrated love, and I've celebrated faith, and I've celebrated righteousness, and I've celebrated and talked about the need for patience and gentleness and self control and these other fruit of the spirit, and I've pointed out models of them and celebrated people who did those things. But God has really shown me that endurance is at the core of so many of his lists of Christian virtue. Over and over in the Bible, it's a part of the list, and it's one that I've omitted, and I wanna celebrate more effectively going forward. A third thing I've learned about endurance is that endurance is a source of hope and comfort to others. Now this particular verse has meant a great deal to me.
Jeff Iorg:It's Romans five verses three and four. The Bible says, we boast in our afflictions because we know that affliction produces endurance. Endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces
Jeff Iorg:hope. Affliction produces endurance, which proves character, which gives people hope.
Jeff Iorg:Now, this became important to me because when I first came to the executive committee, well meaning people said to me, your coming has given me greater hope for the future and greater hope that we can solve some of the issues and problems that are facing us, and I appreciated that encouragement. But something deep down inside of me wanted to sort of lash out or respond back and say, just stop. Wait a minute. I'm nobody's hope. Okay?
Jeff Iorg:I I I'm just Jeff, and I'm just gonna do the
Jeff Iorg:best I can, but but don't put your hope in me. And I I was confronted, however, by this passage because it says the opposite of what I just said. It says again, affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. So here's how it works. When you have a leader
Jeff Iorg:that has endured, and that endurance has shaped that leader's character so that it becomes admirable to you,
Jeff Iorg:the Bible says that proven character gives you hope. So listen to
Jeff Iorg:me now. If you're out there
Jeff Iorg:and you're a leader, listen to me. You are a source of hope for other people. Now I know
Jeff Iorg:I I've got sermons that say Jesus is the only hope. I've had to go back and tear those sermons up. Jesus is not
Jeff Iorg:the only hope, he's the ultimate hope. Jesus is the ultimate hope, but this verse in Romans says that I'm hope too, and so are you.
Jeff Iorg:Think about the people that you look up to in ministry. Why do you look up to them? Why do they give you hope that you can endure in ministry, and you can accomplish ministry, and you can continue in ministry because they've endured some things. And you've admired them for doing that, and that endurance has shaped their character and made them into the man or the woman that you admire, that you look up to, that you draw strength from their example, that gives you hope? Well, that's what Romans says.
Jeff Iorg:It says endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. So
Jeff Iorg:I want you to accept this role today. You're a hope giver. If you're a leader and you've been through some things and you've endured and that endurance has shaped your character and made you more into the man or the woman of God that you've become, Recognize that people are looking at you and they're saying, I can make it too. I have hope because of what I see this person accomplishing. So you are a source of hope, and while you may chafe at that a bit and say,
Jeff Iorg:No, Jesus is the only hope. No, rethink that. Jesus is the ultimate hope, but Romans five and two Corinthians one:six and Hebrews ten thirty two and thirty six, these passages all say that you also are a source of hope because as you endure and it shapes your character, that produces something in you that causes other people to find hope in your example.
Jeff Iorg:And then here's another one. Endurance is also essential to your spiritual growth. You can find this in Luke eight fifteen, Hebrews twelve one and following, James one three and four. The Bible says, James one three and four, consider it
Jeff Iorg:a great joy whenever you experience various trials because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.
Jeff Iorg:In other words, there are some things you can only learn by living through them, and there is some spiritual growth that only results
Jeff Iorg:from the pressure packed crucible of the difficult circumstances you've had to live through and endure. You know, as I look back over my life, there have been some
Jeff Iorg:moments that were very difficult, both personally and professionally. I'll just mention one of each. Personally,
Jeff Iorg:it was very difficult the day the doctor called me and said, you have cancer. That was a very, very hard summer. And then professionally, the end of twenty twelve and the beginning of twenty thirteen, when Golden Gate Seminary was at the end of a long process of trying to redevelop its campus and had reached a point of really no more options, I was in a dark place, not knowing what to do or how to do it, not knowing where to go or how to move forward. Those were very difficult times. But as I look back on those experiences, I will tell you that I would not want to have lived without them because it was in those experiences
Jeff Iorg:that God taught me things about my life and about ministry that I could never have learned any other way.
Jeff Iorg:It was in those circumstances of cancer and professional public crisis with the seminary. It was in those experiences that I discovered depths of God's love, that I discovered new dimensions of Christian fellowship with my wife and with other brothers and sisters that went through those things with us.
Jeff Iorg:It was during those experiences that I learned in in ways that are hard to put into words, how God can sustain us way beyond anything we thought we could deal with. It was those times when I experienced a richness of spiritual growth and development that could have only come through endurance
Jeff Iorg:and through
Jeff Iorg:enduring really difficult moments. What James says is true.
Jeff Iorg:Various trials come for the testing of your faith to produce endurance,
Jeff Iorg:and then it says, and let endurance have its full effect so that you may be mature and complete,
Jeff Iorg:lacking nothing.
Jeff Iorg:As I've talked about this in a few other contexts,
Jeff Iorg:I've been amazed at the people who've come up to me and said, I had a heart attack, but I learned so much through that experience, I would have it all over again.
Jeff Iorg:Another person said, when my spouse died, I thought life was over.
Jeff Iorg:And while I don't ever wanna go through that again, I will tell you that it was through those experiences I learned depths of God and a relationship with him that I never experienced before. People have said to me when I lost my job,
Jeff Iorg:when my company fell apart,
Jeff Iorg:when we lost financially everything we'd always worked for.
Jeff Iorg:What I'm trying to tell you today is that the Bible says that there are some spiritual lessons we can only learn by enduring, and that through endurance,
Jeff Iorg:the full meaning of what God is trying to teach us about life and about himself and about how he can sustain us, work through us, changes, can only happen when we endure.
Jeff Iorg:That's why you just can't bail too quickly when trouble comes to your life because it's only in the enduring that you learn some things. Well, then finally, I've learned this. Endurance is a point of prayer in the church. There are three times that Paul prayed that the believers might have great endurance. Colossians one eleven, first Thessalonians one three, and second Thessalonians three five.
Jeff Iorg:He said, pray for brothers and sisters to endure.
Jeff Iorg:You know, I think most of the time we go to prayer meeting, we pray for deliverance. God, deliver me from cancer. God, deliver me from debt. God, deliver me from this bad relationship. God, deliver me from this church that's causing me all this trouble.
Jeff Iorg:God, deliver me. But at least three times, Paul did not pray for deliverance. He prayed instead for endurance, and this has shifted my prayers.
Jeff Iorg:God, give us endurance that we can make it through the difficulty that you're allowing in our life.
Jeff Iorg:Well, today on the podcast, I've tried to share with you just a snapshot of something I'm studying and learning and trying to apply, and that is the biblical concept of endurance. I had never studied the word hupomone until recently. Now I'm delving down into it and looking at every usage of that word in the New Testament and asking God to build something new in me, which which is character shaped by endurance and a deeper understanding of what it means to endure. By trusting in His Word and by staying with Him through the difficulty of life, to both experience God in fresh ways, and then learn new things about how to do His work in the world, because I have endured. And I thank God that in this last year, He put me into a new set of life circumstances that have been burdensome to me, and that He's taught me not to pray to escape them, but to learn from them so that my character might be shaped and that people might draw hope from the example that I'm setting.
Jeff Iorg:I have learned so much this year about this concept of endurance. I challenge you to get your Bible, look up every reference to the word endurance in the New Testament, make your own study, and then apply it in your situation as you lead on.