Hebrews 11:29-12:3 “Faith
for the Distance”
It is good to be back with
you!
We had a wonderful vacation
out west to
Dave and I have been going on
camping vacations with our kids since they were very small.
We wanted them to grow up
loving the outdoors. And they do.
But they’ve turned out to be
are hard-core outdoorsmen. In fact, Matt and James, our two sons, who went with
us on this trip, took one hike that was 18 miles long. And that was just on one day.
Dave and I took a different
hike that day. We love to hike.
We like being in the
beautiful outdoors, we like the discovery of hiking.
One of the things we’ve
learned about hiking is that what you wear on your feet matters.
I have a favorite pair of
hiking boots that I always wear when I hike.
(show them)
They keep me from
slipping. They’ve prevented ankle
sprains. I never get blisters.
Now I’m sure you’ve noticed
all the shoes scattered up here today - thanks to everyone who brought in a
pair.
Someone suggested that we
spend time guessing which shoes belong to which person. (Do a couple) That would be fun . . . But that’s not
really the point of the shoes today.
Each pair of shoes here is
suited to a certain task, or sometimes a certain person.
But we’ll talk more about
shoes a little later.
One of the things Dave &
I also enjoy about hiking is the challenge.
We almost always get to a
place on our longer hikes where we’re not necessarily noticing the beautiful
outdoors.
We’re simply putting one foot
in front of the other. When we’re six
miles into a seven mile hike, and we decide we’re tired, we can’t just give
up. There is no shuttle bus back from
the trail to your campsite.
So we’ve learned to
persevere.
Today’s reading from the
letter to the Hebrews sounds like it’s about faith - and it is.
But it’s also about an essential quality of faith:
perseverance. Endurance.
Commitment to running the
race that is set before us, as verse 1 reminds us.
This letter was probably
written to by Paul or one of his associates - maybe Timothy -
to one of the early churches,
some scholars think it may have been in
But the author or the church
hardly matter.
Because it’s also written to us. The author could be talking to our church
today.
The author uses the image of
a race as a metaphor for the Christian life. Running this race is hard
work. We want to give up, to quit sometimes. But the good news is that this is not a race
where we run alone.
We are surrounded, this
scripture says, by a cloud of witnesses who have run the same race, and
persevered in their faith. Who is this
author talking about?
It’s always important to read
all around the scripture we are studying.
Read backwards and forwards.
This author is referring back to chapter 11, where he just given a roll call of
Bible folks who have been models of faith in God.
We pick it up in today’s
reading at v. 29 when we hear: “By faith the people passed through the
during the exodus as God
opened up the
They are the ones who have
lived according to the picture of faith that begins chapter 11:
“Now faith is the assurance
of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
And then he calls out the
names of the faithful like a litany. By
faith there was Abel.
By faith, Enoch. By Faith
Noah. By faith Abraham and Sarah. By faith, Isaac and Jacob.
By faith Joseph. By faith
Moses. But he’s not done.
The list goes on and on --
some named and some unnamed. The
Israelites at the walls of
Rahab. Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephath, David,
Samuel. The faithful ones who have faced
the mouths of lions and the fury of flames, and the fear of battle. Others who faced torture and martyrdom,
all the while keeping their
eyes fixed on Jesus and the hope of resurrection. (I have given you a list of
scripture references, so you can look up some of these stories of our faith -
the stories of the people of faith who have come before us.)
For each verse, each name,
tells a story of faithfulness, a story of tenacity and perseverance. Some are familiar, some less so. If we take just one of these stories as a
model of faith - v. 34 mentions raging fire.
It’s the story of Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego in the book of Daniel.
These were the 3 men who
refuse to bow down and worship King Nebuchadnezzar of
But after being thrown in,
the King sees not just Shradrach, Meshach and
Abednego walking in the flames, he sees a fourth figure, with the appearance of
a god. He releases them from the fire,
and convicted of the power of the Israelite God, declares “there is no other
god who is able to deliver us in this way.”
This is a story not so much
of fiery furnaces and out of control kings.
It is a story about faith and the endurance, the
perseverance, that is always a part of mature faith.
In this scripture, the writer
also points to Jesus as the ultimate example of perseverance.
Look to Jesus. Keep your eyes on Jesus. He is the example of faithful endurance.
This scripture reminds us
that Jesus endured the cross.
But Jesus also endured all
kinds of hostility and opposition from the very people he came to save!
His quarrels with his
opposition are legendary. They opposed him over his eating with sinners and
healing on the Sabbath. But the opposition with his friends wasn’t much
better.
Jesus was betrayed by a
disciple, denied by a disciple, abandoned by nearly all his disciples, save for
a couple of women. His disciples fought
- repeatedly - over who was the greatest.
They spent 3 years with him
and still didn’t get his teaching.
They didn’t trust God -
remember those stories - “we’re going to sink” they hollered from the fishing
boat!
“Who’s going to feed all
these people?” they wondered at the end
of a long day of the Master’s teaching.
“You can’t suffer and die!
That’s not what a Messiah is!” they were
saying at the end.
Yet Jesus endured all this
from his friends and his enemies in order to reconcile us to God in a way we
could never. And in the process, he
demonstrated faithful endurance in a way we never can.
But still he is the pioneer
and perfecter of our faith, who shows us the way.
Now don’t misunderstand. Faithful endurance does not mean we tolerate
abuse.
Whenever we find in human
history or in ourselves that we are using the cross to abuse or victimize,
we can be sure we are not
understanding the cross. Or Jesus. For centuries, women have been urged by the
church to put up with abuse as a matter of Christian sacrifice, Christian
virtue.
It’s your lot to bear, your
burden to carry, to put up with a husband who beats you,
or an alcoholic who drinks
up the children’s meals.
That’s not what it means to
endure the cross.
Or in 19th century
and to preach to them that
slavery was their cross to bear, their way of following Jesus.
That’s not what it means to
endure the cross. Endurance means we
persevere in seeing God’s purposes through to the end. We
look for God’s purposes, not our own.
We all want a purpose. Remember
that book written by Rick Warren several years ago? “The Purpose-Driven Life?” We all want to find a purpose. The challenge for most Christians is not
finding our purpose.
The challenge for most Christians is faithfully enduring
at the purposes we’ve already been given.
These days we don’t much like
perseverance, endurance.
It’s not popular. It’s not always fun. We don’t like to stick with things.
The Christian walk offers a sharp contrast to
this. We are asked to be faithful.
We are asked to persevere in
our commitments, sometimes despite how we feel.
We are asked to sometimes
sacrifice personal feelings, freedom, immediate gratification, and self.
We are asked to endure, for this endurance is an
essential characteristic of all the faithful ones
who have walked in the presence of God.
This endurance is a quality
that can make a difference in every part of your life.
Your job. Your marriage. Your family.
At school. But today I
specifically want to talk about the need for endurance right here in our life together as a church.
That’s where the shoes are
going to come in. Paul uses the
metaphor of a race to demonstrate the life of faith.
I’m going to continue the
metaphor of the Christian life by using shoes.
Just like in hiking, the kind
of shoes we wear in the Christian life matters.
This scripture today teaches
us to travel lightly, to not get weighed down by stuff that slows us down.
If you think of runners, they
don’t run in cowboy boots. (show)
As a church, we sometimes
need to let go of some of things. Things like negativity and fear. They weigh us down. Can anyone run a race well thinking, “I
can’t do this.” Can anyone finish a
race, by looking behind as they run, thinking, “I’m afraid that guy behind me
is going to beat me.”
Our church can’t say yes to
God’s purposes while we think “We can’t do that” “We tried that before” “We don’t have enough money.” That’s like
trying to run with a bag of rocks slung over our shoulders.
The author also urges us to
not grow weary and lose heart. We are to endure, to never give up.
I recently heard a great
story about the subject of endurance. It
seems the great leader and statesman Winston Churchill was invited to give a
commencement address. When it came time for his speech, Churchill got up, stood
behind the podium, looked out on the crowd who were eagerly awaiting his words,
and said, “Never give up.” And then he
sat down. As everyone sat there in
stunned silence, Churchill got up again and simply said, “Never give up.” And then sat down again. Then a third time he returned to the
microphone and said the same thing,
“Never give up.” That was the sum total of his speech. [1]
That, my friends, is an
essential quality of faithfulness.
And that idea of faithful
endurance is critical to being church together.
You can take any pair of
these shoes up here, and put them on your feet.
What makes a difference is
putting one foot in front of the other, never giving up, sometimes despite how
we feel.
That is what it is going to take for us to become the
church God is calling us to be.
But there’s just one more
thing, and it’s related to never giving up.
No matter what kind of shoes
you’re wearing, what also makes a difference is where you stand.
Now some of us like to stand
with one foot in, and one foot out, kind of waiting, kind of holding back,
to see if we really are going
to make a go of this church. I can
certainly understand that way of standing.
Sometimes there are good
reasons for this.
But one foot in, one foot
out, isn’t the way our ancestors in the faith stood, that great cloud of
witnesses who experienced God in their daily lives. It isn’t the way Jesus stood.
If we want this church to
grow, to thrive, to serve the community, to be the church God is calling us to
become,
it’s time for all of us to
jump in with both feet.
I’m here with you - with both
feet. I invite all of you to jump in with me.
[1] Michael W. Foss, From Members to Disciples: Leadership Lessons
from the Book of Acts, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007), p. 89