What does First B Jackson teach about endurance?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on endurance starts with the honest observation that none of us know how many days we have left, and that the culture surrounding us assumes this life is all there is. Pastor Brad pressed on that gap directly, using Hebrews 12:1-2 as a framework. The text does not call believers to watch from a distance or offer critique from the sidelines. It calls the whole church, not just pastors and elders, to run. And the race set before each person is their own. Brad pointed to the moment in John's Gospel when Jesus tells Peter his future and Peter asks about John, only to be told to mind his own calling. The standard for winning is simply finishing the race marked out for you.
Stripping down comes before running well. Brad named what he called selfism, a systematic selfishness that uses people and experiences as if this life is the whole story, as the root obstacle. But he was equally careful to point out that not everything hindering a race is outright sin. Travel sports, hobbies, comfort, the drive for approval, none of those are condemned in themselves, but any of them can crowd out what God has for a person. The practical counsel he offered was to name the fear underneath a given compulsion, speak truth from scripture into it, confess it to someone, and give it to God. The application is personal: the text says let us rid ourselves, not our spouses or our neighbors.
The same ground was covered from a different angle when Natalie taught from 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, drawing on her own experience training for a half marathon. The difference between her first race, where she cut corners and barely finished, and her second, where she ran with a coach and a crew and dropped eight minutes off her time, was not talent. It was sacrifice, coaching, and community. She connected that directly to the life of faith, arguing that the hardness of the race is not a sign something has gone wrong. Drawing on James 1, Romans 5, and 1 Peter 1, she showed that tested faith produces perseverance, and perseverance, when fully developed, produces maturity. The goal God is after, she said, is holiness as much as happiness, and trials are the weight room where that happens.
Taught from Hebrews 12:1-2 · 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 · Galatians 5:13-14 · James 1 · Romans 5
The passage taught · 1 Corinthians 10:31
31 Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- September 24, 2025 Rid, Run, Look Hebrews 12 calls Christians to strip off sin, run with endurance, and fix their eyes on Jesus, the champion who finished his race so we could run ours.
- September 14, 2025 Rid, Run, Look Hebrews 12 calls us to rid ourselves of every hindrance, run with endurance, and fix our eyes on Jesus, the champion who finished the race for us.
- October 4, 2023 Women's Bible Study - October 4th, 2023 Natalie draws on her half marathon journey to explore what it takes to train, endure, and stand firm in faith for the race God has set before us.
Mentioned along the way
- March 15, 2022 Faith and Endurance James 1:1-12 shows that trials build endurance and maturity in believers. Pastor Carl walks through faith in action, God's wisdom, and the promise of the crown of life.
- January 19, 2020 Wrestle Until You Find Your Rest in God A pastor wrestling with Hebrews 12 on suffering and discipline, asking whether hardship has purpose and where God is when life is genuinely painful.
- January 12, 2020 Fix Your Eyes on Jesus Hebrews 12 calls us to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, and run with endurance the race set before us, laying aside sin and every encumbrance.
- January 5, 2020 By Faith: People of Whom the World Was Not Worthy Hebrews 11-12 sermon on living by faith, honoring those who ran before us, and fixing our eyes on Jesus as we endure the race set before us.
- December 1, 2019 Faith Is the Assurance of Things Hoped for Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. A sermon through Hebrews 11 on what it means to live by faith, drawing from the lives of the faithful who came before us.
- December 1, 2019 By Faith: The Bread That Holds It Together Hebrews 11 shows that every believer across all time is united by faith in God's faithfulness. That same faith is what God calls us to live by today.
- November 24, 2019 Do Not Throw Away Your Confidence A verse-by-verse walk through Hebrews 10:32-39, set in the context of the whole book, on enduring hardship, holding fast to faith, and not shrinking back.
- October 21, 2018 Entrusting Your Soul to a Faithful Creator When suffering comes for following Christ, Pastor James shows from 1 Peter how God uses that fire to refine us and calls us to keep entrusting our souls to a faithful Creator.