Or, There Is No Time to Faint
Scripture: 2 Thessalonians 3:13
Date: August 10, 2025
Speaker: Sean Higgins
This sermon started a couple weeks ago while working through my regular Bible reading plan. 2 Thessalonians 3:13 provoked me in a couple ways.
“As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good.” (ESV)
The first thing that I thought was that I wanted to see what the Greek word was behind “grow weary” and then see if it’s used in other verses. The second thing I thought was that it really seems like one of those exhortations that can feel useless because it states the obvious.
Any husband learns quickly the single most counterproductive instruction in the English language. Not only does it not typically hit the target, the exhortation accomplishes the opposite. When you are in a discussion or situation when things are tense, or are starting to get that way, and you say, “Calm down,” has that ever calmed anyone down? It’s the same when you say, “Just relax.”
So now let’s say you were in a situation that was hard enough to make you tired, as is the reason why it’s called a “hard” situation, and you are looking haggard like a rubber band that’s been holding your mailbox together for twenty years, and someone said to you, “Hey, don’t be tired!” You might have some choice words for that fellow.
But there it is from Paul to the Thessalonians: “do not grow weary.”
In context, it’s actually tougher than it first appears. The ESV starts a new paragraph at verse 13, but most translations place this sentence mid-paragraph or even at the end (also represented, respectively, in the Greek UBS4 and TGNT). It follows a long and repetitive stretch addressing the issue of idle brothers, those who made it harder for others because they weren’t willing to work (verses 6-12). They were “not busy at work, but busybodies” (verse 11), working their criticisms from the sidelines. “Do not grow weary in doing good” isn’t just a contrast in outcome, it’s a call to suck it up when you’re surrounded by annoying people who want you to do their work for them while they’re complaining about what you’re doing.
We’ll get to the word itself in a moment. It is used five other times in the New Testament, though this is the only time it’s in the form of a command. But it is a command.
It’s a command because a certain kind of weariness is a threat. The boat is tipping and taking on water. Your eyes are as wide as the main sail, your heartbeat visible through your life-jacket. People are freaking out. When dad says, “Just relax,” the listener might wonder how but probably not why. We need neither to panic and jump overboard or just lay down because then we’re all going to drown.
I find this exhortation: “do not grow weary in doing good” to be relevant. It hits my heart. Because it is a biblical command, it has required my own biblical repentance for disobeying the command.
I don’t want to be dramatic here, but I do work hard to not look like I’m having problems. Especially when fulfilling the role of minister, I seek to do the work and point to the Word rather than say everything I’m dealing with. People want me to fix things, people think because I’m trying to have a good attitude that I must not care about fixing things.
I’m saying this not just to be honest, but for your encouragement. No one lives by faith who does not know great tests of faith. Lewis talked about this in Mere Christianity.
”You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later.”
It’s why Paul told the Corinthians, “we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself,” so that they would “rely not only ourselves but on God who raises the dead,” and so be able to “comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9, and 3).
I know what it’s like to have the weakness of my heart exposed. I know the temptation to grow weary and lose heart. Though on one hand I would say I’ve never been tempted to give up faith in Christ, I would also have to say that I’ve been tempted to believe that I could somehow have my faith and not the difficulty. You too? We have to obey: “do not grow weary in doing good.”
When I looked at the Greek text for 2 Thessalonians 3:13 I found that the word for “grow weary” is a form of engkakeo (ἐγκακέω). It seemed familiar, as if I’d spent some time digging into dictionaries for that word before. And indeed I had.
It is the word used in 2 Corinthians 4:1 and 16, though in those verses the ESV translates it as “we do not lose heart.” Grow weary and lose heart are two ways to say the same thing. There is always a negative before it in the New Testament, so don’t do it. And we might say the positive alternative, “Keep heart!”
William Tyndale, the first to map the meaning to an English word, translated it as “faynte.” Other modern takes have “discouraged” or “give up.” A well known Greek dictionary: “to lose one’s motivation in continuing a desirable pattern of conduct or activity” (BAGD).
The word is formed from “in” and “do badly.” So it’s doing the bad/wrong thing in the midst of a (hard) situation. By extension it’s being overwhelmed when you were meant to be the one doing the whelming. It’s being worn down by circumstances when the circumstances call you to work through. You want to quit holding up the roof, but all the other columns went home; it’s up to you.
So this kind of losing heart is culpable negligence. Don’t do it. Collapse is not neutral. Collapse is bad! Collapse is disobedient.
The word occurs six times in the New Testament in at least four contexts, four arenas in which you ought not lay down.
The first occurrence of engkakeo is in Luke 18:1. “And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.” The parable is not subtle. The widow kept bothering the unjust judge by her continual coming. She didn’t give up, she made him give up.
The point of the parable is that God is better than any human judge, so keep praying. “And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night?” But the final rhetorical question is, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (verse 8). We have not because we ask not, and we ask not because we lose heart.
Twice engkakeo belongs with doing good. We’ve already seen the command in 2 Thessalonians 3:14, and it is the word found in Galatians 6:9, “And let us not grow weary of going good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”
This work is like seed. We recognize the analogy from the context. “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (verse 7). It’s easy to take this as warning only, but it is a promise. Sown seed will succeed—because God is not mocked. Laying down in the ditch beside the field with your bag still full of seed because you are tired and you think the sowing won’t work anyway is not just lazy, it’s defiant. Again, it is culpable negligence.
Paul particularly connects engkakeo with the work of the ministry of the Word in 2 Corinthians 4:1. “Having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.” “Ministry” is a form of diaconia, so serving, and the rest of the paragraph is about God’s Word and proclaiming and embodying the gospel. It’s sovereign mercy that God’s Word accomplishes His purposes, to save and to transform to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). Does God use your breaking points to show that the surpassing power belongs to Him (2 Corinthians 4:7-9)? Does God make it that when death is at work it us it brings life to others (2 Corinthians 4:10-12)? Then keep heart!
The final two uses of engkakeo come in contexts of pain. And here we can see twofold division, which is between our own suffering and the suffering of others.
2 Corinthians 4:16-17, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”
Ephesians 3:13, “So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.”
Not only does lose heart occurs in both, so glory belongs with both. It is good when suffering increases your capacity. It is good when others suffer for you.
Again, the temptation to lose heart is as necessary as the imperative to not to. You must not quit—but you will know what it’s like to want to. And in that minute, when the towel is in hand and you’re ready to throw, what do you need? This will require a part two of the sermon.
Christian, this is no time to faint because there is no time to faint. The Lord commands: keep heart! Your people need you not to collapse. God is working for your share of glory, and it includes not growing weary in your walk against the wind.
Maybe you’re thinking, “I’ve already lost heart.” Look again to the Lord.
they who wait for the LORD shall renew
their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
(Isaiah 40:31 ESV)
Einstein probably didn’t define insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. Paul did define mockery of God as sowing one kind of seed and expecting different fruit, which also applies to not sowing and still expecting fruit. Sow, and keep heart!
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:7–9 ESV)