What It Means To Endure | Crossroads Students

Hey friends, we're here in Athens, Greece. This place is legendary. You've probably seen this in a TV show or somewhere. You've seen the temple up there on top of the hill, and this is Paul's biggest stage yet. He was on these streets. We're in the marketplace called the Agora, and this is Paul walking through these streets, seeing this place, seeing the statues and the idols, and we're going to go to another location where he gave his biggest, most important speech yet. That's amazing because it's also here that he's not just feeling out the town and kind of doing his normal way of preaching the gospel. He doesn't just learn a lesson of suffering like he did in Philippi. He also learns how to endure. He learns that training is going to bring him to a new place. And so Parker, I'm excited for you to go off and explain to us, what does this space mean for us? What does it mean for endurance? What does it mean for Paul's journey and our own journey? So let's get after it. Let's do it. If there was one city that had it all, it was Athens. This place is the most iconic ancient city in human history. It is the birthplace of Western civilization, of democracy, of philosophy. This is the big leagues if there ever was one. Of course, you've seen the Parthenon behind me, the iconic temple to the goddess of Athena. Paul comes here in between here and getting to Corinth. And I don't know that he was here to preach the gospel or not, but he's here and he starts walking around and he starts seeing the sites. Where we were last time was called the Agora. The Agora was the marketplace.

That's where people walked around, they shopped, they lived. And that place was full of idols and shrines and statues to kings and emperors and other gods. And Paul's walking through this area and he's provoked. He starts to get a little heated because he's seeing these other gods and these statues. And he sees one that's to an unknown god. And it's really interesting for him. He's not here to preach the gospel, but he starts to get stirred up and he decides, this is my chance. I've got to talk to people about Jesus. And so he starts sharing this brand new idea about Jesus. And this city loved new ideas. That's what it was built on was philosophy and new ideas. It's like the Harvard of the ancient world where you had the most brilliant people that love to learn and talk about new things. And that's what they did right here on this rock at Mars Hill. This is the place where the biggest minds in the entire world would come together to debate new ideas. So Paul's in the marketplace. He starts to share about Jesus. It's a brand new idea. This man who was God and human, lived a perfect life, died and came back to life. And people are starting to talk about it. People are starting to notice this new message that they're hearing for the first time. And so Paul gets an invite. He gets an invite to come right here to Mars Hill to speak in front of the most brilliant people and share this idea. And that's what Paul does. But Paul is different here. Old Paul would have come in guns blazing.

He would have been hot. He would have ripped them to shreds. He would have argued with them. But he doesn't do that this time. Instead, he leans in, he listens, he learns from their society, and he speaks in a language that they can understand. Paul comes up here and says, hey, I know you all are brilliant people, some of the most intelligent people out there. And I know that you're really religious because I've seen all your idols and statues to your many gods. And I even saw one to an unknown God. Let me tell you who that unknown God is in the person of Jesus. He has impact here and he has success. And it's not something that he woke up with. He didn't wake up today thinking like, you know what, I'm going to go crush it in Athens. He didn't just decide to be on today. This was years of training and shaping and enduring that have formed him for his biggest stage yet right here in Mars Hill. And he has success. Socrates, the great Socrates, did the same thing. He spoke here about foreign gods and he was condemned to death and he was killed because of it. But Paul gets invited back to speak again and some of the council themselves believe in Jesus and become part of the movement that he is doing. And this is all because of the hard work and the endurance that Paul went through. He suffered, but he also put in the time to grow and to be shaped by Jesus. He doesn't go in and bulldoze their beliefs. He builds a bridge to them. He's patient. He's thoughtful.

He's strategic. That's not luck. That's growth. Athens reminds us that growth takes time. You don't get stronger or better or more prepared overnight. The endurance you learn in the quiet prepares you for your next moment with God. All of this was able to happen in Athens because of endurance and endurance is something that Paul learned. And it didn't just make him tougher. It made him more effective and have more impact. Here's the truth. We're all going to suffer. We're all going to go through difficult times, but not everyone endures. Endurance is a choice. It's a choice to continue to show up and be open. and do the work. That's what Paul did. All the way back in Tarsus, he has been on this journey of showing up, of hitting the same nail, of swinging that same thing, and eventually it gets easier because you have endurance. You're starting to build up muscles and starting to change your patterns because you're enduring and you're going on this training process. We're in Athens, which is home of one of the original Olympic Games. And I think about the athletes that compete there. They don't just wake up Olympic athletes. You're not just born that way.

You put in the work time and time again, and eventually you start to see the results. And it's the same way with Jesus. I mean, what parts of your life, how many things in your life with your walk with Jesus look like training? But it's what it takes. Through years, you're slowly getting up, showing up, trusting God with more of who you are and letting him shape your choices and your decisions and your directions. And pretty soon, you start to look like a different person. And that preparation has prepared, and that endurance has prepared you for the spotlight that God has for you next. One day, you're gonna wake up and realize that the training that you've been doing, the endurance that you've been going through was preparing you for the exact moment that God had for you to step up for what's next. Well, Parker, that was just amazing to see the space where Paul would have actually stood and had an impact on this region because of his boldness and faithfulness. And you know what another place that has an impact is where we're standing right now. Behind us is this giant place called the Parthenon. What even is that? Yeah, so the Parthenon is the temple to the goddess of Athena.

And as far as having impact, this is the most iconic building. So, we're gonna go ahead and take a look at it. So, we're gonna go ahead and take a look at the Parthenon. And we're gonna go ahead and take a look at the Parthenon. This is the most iconic building structure in the ancient world, honestly. And as you can tell, there's a lot of tourists around here. A lot of people wanna see this, and that's not new because this place is epic. It's 2,500 years old. It's 500 years before the time of Jesus. That's how old this thing is. And even in Paul's day, 2,000 years ago, tourists have been flooding to this area just to get a glimpse of this thing because of the sheer size of it and how amazing it is. It's 228 feet long. It's 101 feet wide. It is epic. And I'm excited to be standing right here. I am too, but you know what's funny is perhaps the most important and impactful thing is not this Parthenon standing behind us. It's actually Paul's boldness, his willingness to endure, to learn from his suffering because that is what had an impact on this entire region. Today, there are Christians in this very place because of Paul's boldness. Well, the good news is we're not done yet.

We still got more to go. We're still got a couple of epic spots on this journey of Paul as we follow his footsteps. Yeah, so we're headed to Corinth, and we'll catch you next week on Real Encounters.