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Dear Friends
in Christ,
If you were to go into the basement of our house, you would find a few
things down there that would tell a story of sorts about me, a story
that I might add I’m not all that proud of. For just to the right of
our stairs you would find a very nice treadmill, a treadmill that my
wife just had to have some years ago, but that to my recollection she
used only a few times. I can’t really criticize her for that, however,
for even though I was excited about getting it, I haven’t done much
better with it as it’s been at least a year to a year and a half since I
set foot on it. And then sitting right next to that treadmill you will
find another piece of exercise equipment that I just
had to have some years ago after seeing it advertised on
one of those infomercials on TV. It’s called a Total Gym and is
designed to give your body a total workout. But as you can probably
guess, you actually have to use it in order to get that total workout,
which again is something that I haven’t done for a couple of years.
Now as I said before, all of this tells a story of
sorts about me. And that is that I don’t always finish what I start.
You see, ever since I was a little boy I’ve always had the desire to
have a Charles Atlas-like body – bulging biceps, narrow waist, 6-pack
abs, calves that looked like they were carved out of marble – and though
I have started on numerous occasions to achieve that goal, it’s pretty
obvious from looking at me that I’ve never attained it. Instead I seem
to lose interest rather quickly and I end up settling for my weak,
wimpy, flabby body that is more and more beginning to show the ravages
of the aging process.
So what does all this have to do with what I want to
talk to you about today? Well, this morning I want to focus upon what
it means to persevere, to never give up and never say die, to have what
I’m calling in my sermon title “an enduring heart.” I want to talk
about what it means to not just run the Christian race but to finish it
and finish it strong. For it’s one thing to fail to complete an
exercise program, as I’ve done far more times than I care to remember,
but it’s an entirely different matter to start running the Christian
race and fizzle out before you reach the finish line.
Now as we look at our text for today, we hear the
writer to the Hebrews encouraging us to “run with perseverance the
race marked out for us.” I find it interesting how he refers to the
Christian life as a race, but it’s even more interesting when we examine
this text in the Greek language that it was originally written in. For
the Greek word for race is the word agon, from which we get our
English word agony. Now that right away tells us something about
the Christian life and that is that contrary to what a lot of people
want to believe, it is not a pleasant stroll through the park. It is
not a lazy saunter through flowery fields and meadows on a warm, sunny
spring day. Rather it is a demanding, grueling, and sometimes agonizing
race. It is a marathon that takes great effort on our part if we want
to finish it and finish it strong.
And indeed, there have been many throughout the ages
who have started that race, perhaps with great gusto and enthusiasm, but
somewhere along the way they ran out of gas or they bumped into some of
their fellow runners and became angry and upset with them or they got
distracted and lost interest in the race. Whatever the case and however
it happened, they aren’t running the race anymore and unless something
drastic happens to change all of that, they may very well not finish the
race, which would be a great tragedy with far-reaching and eternal
consequences for them.
Well, lest that happen to any of us, my friends, we
need to find an example to follow, a hero, a champion that we can look
to who has already finished the race and finished it strong. And
thankfully our text for today points us to just such an example when it
says: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our
faith.” Indeed, if there was ever anyone who knew how to persevere,
to never give up and never say die, if there was ever anyone who had an
enduring heart, it was Jesus. Just think for a moment about some of the
things that Jesus endured when he walked this earth as our heaven-sent,
God-appointed substitute.
He first of all endured the daily attacks and
temptations of Satan. When we think of Jesus being tempted by the
devil we usually think of those 40 days that he spent in the wilderness
following his baptism where Satan hounded him day and night. And though
that was a very intense and concentrated time of temptation for Jesus, I
believe with all my heart that Satan dogged Jesus every day of his life
because he knew that if he could get Jesus to stumble just one time,
that would be it. That would spell an end to God’s plan of salvation, a
plan that was entirely dependent upon Jesus living a perfect and sinless
life on our behalf.
But not only did Jesus endure the temptations and
attacks of the evil one, he also endured the criticisms and
misunderstandings of his family, his friends, his enemies, all of
whom he came down to this earth to die for. As some of you know, for
several years now I’ve been participating in a church bowling league on
Thursday nights from September through April. I bowl with Mike Quandt
and Nelson Heinzmann and Zach Wollin from our church and a couple of
other great guys. And one of the things that I love so much about this
league is how encouraging everyone is. No matter how bad of a night I
might be having, I know that my teammates and even the guys on the other
team are going to rally around me and keep cheering me on.
But suppose they didn’t do that. Suppose that after
missing yet another spare I’d come back to our table and my teammates
would be shaking their heads in disappointment and whispering among
themselves. And suppose one of them would say, “When are you going to
give up this sport and try something else so we can get a decent bowler
on our team rather than the pitiful excuse for bowling that you are.”
It would be tough to bowl under those conditions, wouldn’t it?
But you know what, my friends? That is precisely how
Jesus lived most of his life on this earth. That is precisely how he
often had to run his race. On one occasion his family called him a
lunatic. They thought he was crazy, out of his mind. His brothers
wanted nothing to do with him, that is until he rose from the dead and
they finally realized that he was who he claimed to be, namely, the
long-awaited Messiah and Son of God. When Jesus preached his first
sermon to his hometown crowd in Nazareth, they didn’t like what they
heard so they ran him out of town and tried to throw him off a cliff.
And when he hung on the cross, the absence of all but one of his 12
disciples was probably even more painful than the nails that pierced his
hands and feet.
But not only did Jesus have to endure the temptation
of Satan and the criticisms and misunderstandings of those he came to
save, he also had to endure what our text calls the shame of the
cross. Shame is a feeling of disgrace, embarrassment, humiliation.
Can you imagine the overwhelming and debilitating shame you would feel
if all your secret thoughts or sinful acts that nobody else has ever
known about were suddenly played on a video before your family and
friends? Or how about right here in our sanctuary before your fellow
church members? How do you think you’d feel? Why, you’d want to crawl
in a hole and never come out, wouldn’t you? Well, take that feeling of
shame and multiply it countless times over and you get a pretty good
idea of the shame Jesus endured on the cross. For there he bore the sin
of every human being who had ever lived and ever would live. In fact,
so much so that the Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Cor. 5:21: “God made
him who had no sin to be sin for us.” You understand what that
means, my friends? It means that Jesus didn’t just bear our sin, he
became our sin, the very embodiment and personification of all that we
and everyone else would ever do wrong. And along with that, the
collective shame of all humanity was placed upon him. Think about that
for a moment.
Though Jesus never cheated, on the cross his Father
saw him as a cheater. Though he never stole, on the cross his Father
regarded him as a thief. Though he never lied, on the cross his Father
pronounced him to be the biggest liar of all time. Though he never
lusted or committed adultery, on the cross he bore the shame of an
adulterer. Though he was the innocent one, the perfect one, the
spotless one, he was pronounced guilty by his own Father that day and
punished in our place for our sins. That’s what Jesus endured for you
and for me.
So how did he do it? How did he survive such
humiliation, such shame, such injustice? Well, our text gives us the
answer to that question when it says, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus,
the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him
endured the cross, scorning its shame.” What do you think that word
joy is referring to there? While it no doubt refers to the joy
Jesus would experience once he had accomplished and brought to
completion God’s plan of salvation for sinful mankind, I think it also
is a direct reference to heaven. For you see, Jesus is the only person
to ever live in heaven before he lived on this earth. So he knew
what was waiting for him once his life here was over with. He knew that
he would be going home. And it was that knowledge that not only gave
him joy but also the strength and ability to endure all that temptation,
all that criticism and misunderstanding, all that shame that we’ve
talked about today.
And my friends, when life gets tough for us, that
same heavenly focus, that same eternal perspective can do the same for
us. It can give us the strength, the courage, the commitment we need to
not only endure in the Christian race, but to finish it and finish it
strong.
That’s what it’s doing for one of our members whom I
wish every one of you here today could have the pleasure of visiting.
Her name is Mary Alice Wright. Mary is one of the oldest persons to
ever go through my Adult Information Class and since she couldn’t
actually come to the classes because of health problems, she listened to
them on CD. And as I recall, she had those 10 weeks’ worth of CD’s done
in just a matter of days. But Mary is also one of the strongest
Christian persons I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. Whenever I go
to visit her, I always feel like I’m the one who benefits the most from
that visit because she’s such an inspiration to me. You see, over the
past few months Mary has lived with excruciating pain. She has endured
sleepless nights because of that pain. In fact, it’s gotten so bad that
hospice has now been called in to help her better manage that pain. Yet
Mary’s faith is strong, unbelievably strong. She humbly accepts
whatever the Lord allows to come her way without ever uttering a word of
complaint or shaking an angry fist in the face of God. And the only way
she can suffer with such humility and gentleness and patience is because
she has her eyes fixed upon Jesus and the blessed and perfect life that
he has made possible for her through his own suffering, death, and
resurrection. Because of her faith in Christ, she knows from what God
has told her in his Word where she’s going to spend eternity. She’s
confident that once her lengthy sojourn on this earth is over, all the
pain that she’s experiencing now will cease immediately and forever and
she will finally be home.
That’s a beautiful word, isn’t it? Home. A place
where you feel welcome. A place where you feel comfortable. A place
where you feel loved. Makes me think of the times I was away at college
and it would come time for Christmas break or summer vacation and I
would get in my car and head for home. I’d start out driving the speed
limit, but it seemed like the closer I got to home, there was this giant
magnet drawing me there. So the heavier my foot would get and the
faster my car would go. I couldn’t wait to get there because I knew
what was waiting for me there: my comfortable bed, my mom and dad, my
mom’s great cooking which I knew would always include my favorite
cheesecake, and best of all, my girlfriend and future wife, Marilyn,
would be there.
Well, my friends, imagine what’s waiting for us in
heaven: loved ones and friends who have preceded us there, the saints
and patriarchs that we read about in the Bible, a home specially
prepared for us by Jesus, a face-to-face, one on one encounter with our
risen and living Savior, and much, much more. Please remember that the
next time life gets tough for you and please keep your eyes focused upon
that heavenly goal so that you might truly have the kind of enduring
heart we’ve talked about today and you might not just finish the
Christian race, but finish it strong.
Amen.
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