Encouragement and Endurance

 Adam talks about the etymology of two words, encouragement and endurance. Heart and hardness are the two themes.

Then, for this special episode, an original sermon from a Scout Service in late 2024 is recited.

Finally, some brief thoughts on the need for "softness" versus "hardness" when dealing with life.

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Any views expressed on this podcast are those solely of the hosts and is for entertainment purposes only. None of the content is medical advice or financial advice.

Special thanks to Tim Wright aka CoLD SToRAGE for his permission to use the song Operatique.

Transcript

I Hate Talking: 0:30

Welcome to episode 48 of I Hate Talking. Now this will be a bit of a different episode, this particular episode, and you'll see why in a moment. But before we get to that, we are going to actually talk about two words or phrases of the episode, and these are in fact two separate words, but will be related in the topic that we discussed today. The first is encouragement, encouragement. So as we break down this word, we can see probably 3 types of root words. We have the N part of the word, the courage part of the word, and then the meant part of the word, and meant is basically just that thing that gives something that state or that ability. And then as we look at the root word courage, that comes from the French and Old English. That literally means to give courage or in courage, actually with the IN so basically you are giving somebody courage or whatever is happening is giving that person courage and they are thus in courage and therefore encouraged. Now, we have to go a little bit further back to look at the root word of courage, which does come from the Latin. And it is used frequently within the Middle English and Old French as well in sort of the same manner, but it essentially comes from the Latin word core, which means heart. And basically the people of that day, as well as how it was used in Middle English and old French would see the heart as the source of feelings, spirit, and confidence. So, therefore, when you are encouraged, your heart is feeling confident. So that is the first word, encouragement, and then the second word is endurance. Endurance Now this actually has some of the same aspects of encourage where that word part EN actually comes from the English of IN of just endurance, and it makes the definition essentially continued existence or the ability to last. So then we have to look further back at that endure root word or the just d root word. And that also comes from the Latin from the word doris, which means hard. So as you are enduring, you're basically hardened to the things that may Impact you or hurt you and things of that nature, you have the ability to make it through any particular circumstance because you are quite literally hardened and therefore you can endure. So those are our two words of the episode, encouragement and endurance. Now the reason that this is a bit of a different episode is because instead of having some back and forth and some discussion, this will actually be a replication of a scout service sermon that I personally wrote and gave in the late part of 2024. And wanted to share it with our listeners. So I will be basically reciting that particular sermon that was delivered at a scout service this past year, and you'll see quite soon why encouragement and endurance were the two words of the episode. Now before we begin, it is relevant to note that all Bible passages that are cited here are from the English standard version, otherwise known as the ESV unless otherwise noted. So we will begin with our passage for consideration, Romans 15 verses 4 through 6. For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance. And through the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In this life we will have hardship. There are going to be things that are difficult to do and difficult to deal with. Some of those things are going to come from outside of us. These could be things like mean people at school or a job or family members getting sick, or even people hurting us because of what we believe. There are also things that we have to deal with on the inside, our feelings and our own desires. These could be things like having our feelings hurt and being sad or being tempted to do something that is wrong or failing to help someone in need. So what do we do in these situations when we are either experiencing an external hardship, like the mean, hurtful person, or when we are experiencing an internal hardship like temptation or grief, or even both at the same time. We can look to God, who is the God of endurance and encouragement, who can give us endurance for the external hardships and encouragement for the internal hardships. Protection for both our inside and our outside are granted by God in accord with Christ Jesus. There are 3 external attacks and 3 internal conflicts that I want to talk to you about today. First, for all 3 external attacks, God grants endurance. One, we need to endure our fallen world. Life will be hard and probably painful because of sin entering the world. Life will be hard. We read in Genesis 3-17B 19, God's pronouncements because of Adam and Eve's disobedience, where God says, Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. There may be hard work ahead of us and painful experiences by some outside force or experience, but God will give us endurance right before the pronouncement of the curse we just read, God promised the means of endurance when He says in Genesis 3-15B of the child that will be descended from Eve, our Savior Jesus Christ, quote, He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel, end quote. 2, we need to endure because of our belief, because of being a Christian, we will have trouble. Jesus says in John 16-33, I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world. In this recorded discourse, Jesus is talking to His disciples who are about to experience being scattered. They experienced extra difficult tribulation. We have been blessed to live in a land with great religious freedom. Nonetheless, we might experience outside trouble for what we believe, but even in this verse, Jesus promises peace because Jesus has overcome the world. 3, we need to endure our enemy and spiritual attacks. We are also at war with Satan, the evil one. It says in 1 Peter 5-6 through 11. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you. Be sober minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion for ever and ever. Amen. We can cast all our anxieties, even ones that are from the devil, on God, who will grant us that endurance to overcome those things. God even grants specific protection against the devices of the devil that help us to endure. We read in Ephesians 6-10 to 18 with special attention to verse 16 the following. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that you might be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over the present darkness, against the spiritual fortresses of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as for your shoes, for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. God gives us many different weapons so that we can endure both the attacks that come from the physical world and the spiritual world, the latter of which come about specifically because of what we believe. In verse 16 we read specifically of the shield of faith which extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. We can endure all the attacks, flaming arrows and roaring lions in the spiritual sense because of the special grace we receive from God so that we can endure. Being firm in our faith, we trust the mighty hand of God so that we can resist the evil one. Then we turn our attention to the three internal conflicts where God grants encouragement, one for our heart. Our own internal heart, the place of all our emotions and desires. The Bible says in Jeremiah 17-9-10, King James Version. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart. I try the reins even to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings. Through God making us to share in the benefit from Jesus, our hearts are softened and encouraged. In Hebrews 3-12 to 15, we read, Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day as long as it is called today that none of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For what we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we withhold our original confidence firm to the end, as it is said today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. God can replace the hard heart of rebellion and encourage us to be walking in His ways. Ezekiel 36-26 to 27 says, And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. 2, our nature. But even with our new heart of flesh, pursuing what is good, we still will wrestle with always doing the right thing, which brings us to our second internal struggle with sin, with not following God's law. Earlier in the book of Romans, we read a somewhat confusing passage. In Romans 7, it reads, For I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out, for I do not do the good I want. But the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. That's a long way of saying that the writer of Romans, Paul, who believes in Jesus, wants to do the right thing but doesn't always do it and wants to not sin, but sometimes he does. But our hope still is in God through Jesus when he writes just a few verses later in Romans 7-25. Who will deliver me. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 3, our experience. There will be other things that grieve us or make us sad besides our own hearts and our own sin, and some of those things might be a direct result of the external things that we have already talked about. But God promises to be with us and comfort us and encourage us. In those situations too. In 2 Corinthians 1-37 we read, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly and comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation, and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort. Which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. So in conclusion, we have talked about both the outside attacks and the inside struggles. We have considered three external things our fallen world, hardships because of our belief and our enemies' spiritual attacks, and likewise 3 internal things our heart, our nature, and our experience. As scouts we follow the scout oath. On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout law, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight. But sometimes there may be external things that keep us from fulfilling that oath. There may be external hardships that prevent us from following the scout law. There may be internal conflicts that prevent us from helping other people. But in God we trust that even when we fail, He forgives us and still grants us mercy and grace. For those who believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He died for their sins and rose again, we have this promise for the external, God grants endurance. For the internal, God grants encouragement. Again, consider Romans 15-4 through 6, for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, that is what we wanted to share with you for this particular episode. Again, that scout service sermon that was delivered in late 2024 that does directly relate to our words encouragement and endurance. As we round out the episode, perhaps some brief thoughts on just the etymology as well as it relates to some of the things that were discussed during that discourse, and I find it interesting that the word. Encouragement which has that root word of core. Or that meaning of the heart and the seat of the emotions is described in such a way that needs to be soft and open to reason and being able to be flexible and obedient. But then on the flip side. Endurance with the root word of actually that duris or that hardness that does give us that ability to be able to get through particular experiences or situations or hardships that in some way there has to be a balance between softness of the heart and encouragement and hardness of that endurance aspect of life. It also reminds me of another Bible verse that perhaps also seems to be a bit of a conflict within itself when Jesus is talking to the disciples when he says in Matthew 10-16, Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. With that particular thing that I'm thinking of being the serpents versus the doves that you must be wise as serpents and innocent as doves that it also somewhat has maybe some of the same ideas with the harmless and the softness of the heart for. Dealing with things in life, but then also still being smart or even being a bit hard when it is necessary and the situation deems it so to be able to be wise and endure that particular situation. So again, perhaps a bit of a different kind of episode. Hopefully you've made it this far and if you have, hopefully you will like and share this episode. Perhaps there's somebody out there that is going through some sort of external hardship right now that could use some encouragement or perhaps somebody that is dealing with some internal conflict that just needs some endurance and this particular episode might be able to help them. And let us know if you did enjoy it and would like some of this similar content to be available in the future, or if we return to our standard format with some of this the back and forth discussion on a variety of topics and current events. So, from your friends at IH Talking, until next time, remember, it is only through talking that we begin the journey to understanding.