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"Don't Lose Heart" Hebrews 12:1-3 Yr. C, Proper 15

by The Rev. Clancy Nixon

August 19, 2007

Church of the Holy Spirit

Ashburn, Virginia

www.HolySpiritAnglican.org

Don't lose heart.

God encourages us in his word to cheerfully endure painful trials of every type.

You know what I mean things can be going great for you you're just riding the wave,

and it's smooth sailing.

Then, suddenly, WHAM! You are getting slammed. The wave is no longer your

friend. You're slammed with sickness, slammed with financial reverses, slammed with

friends who betray you. Sound familiar? God says, when you're getting slammed,

rejoice! I think of Paul and Silas in chains in Philippi, singing joyous praise to the Lord.

I think of Paul in prison in Rome, writing back to those same Philippians: "Rejoice in the

Lord always." I think of Jesus on the night before he knew he would be crucified, saying,

"These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be

complete." God has a word of encouragement for you today in your Christian life:

Situations that seem hopeless are opportunities for God to release his strength. You

might get an earthquake that releases you from prison, like Paul and Silas did; you might

be crucified, like Jesus was. Don't lose heart. Either way, Situations that seem hopeless

are opportunities for God to release his strength.

That was the message at the end of Hebrews 11. Turn there with me, to Hebrews

11:36, page 1193 of your blue pew Bibles. Hebrews 11 is the Honor Roll of faith:

Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, and all the others who had great faith and finished the race.

Notice verse 39: "These were all commended for their faith, but none of them received

what was promised." None of them in their lifetimes fully received the promise of God

for them. Abraham was promised that his descendants would inherit the land. Not him,

but his descendants through Isaac. Joseph spoke about the exodus of the Hebrews from

Egypt back to the Promised Land, but this would not happen for hundreds of years.

Moses led the exodus out of Egypt, but he died on the verge of the Promised Land on Mt.

Nebo overlooking the Jordan. Don't lose heart. God will make good on his promises, but

you and I don't always receive them in our lifetime. That is why we need faith in the face

of rejection.

Here is some advice from an old preacher when facing rejection. "Reject

rejection!" [Jerry Falwell] Many of those who have risen from failure to real achievement

have rejected the rejection of this world. In 1902, the poetry editor of The Atlantic

Monthly returned a sheaf of poems to a twenty-eight-year-old poet with this curt note:

"Our magazine has no room for your vigorous verse." The poet was Robert Frost, who

rejected the rejection.

In 1905, the University of Berne turned down a Ph.D. dissertation as being

irrelevant and fanciful. The young physics student who wrote the dissertation was Albert

Einstein, who rejected the rejection.

In 1894, the rhetoric teacher at Harrow in England wrote on the sixteen-year-

old's report card, "a conspicuous lack of success." The sixteen-year-old was Winston

Churchill, who rejected the rejection.

Just because people reject you does not

mean that God has rejected you. God is not finished with us yet. If we would only

persevere to the end, we'll often see success. Don't lose heart.

Chapter 12, verse 1. Let's say it together: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by

such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so

easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." (Hebrews

12:1) Isn't that beautiful? I love this passage. So these saints listed in Hebrews 11, and

all the others, are a great cloud of witnesses. They are called The Church Triumphant,

the saints in Heaven. They witnessed with their faithful lives and with their faithful

deaths, often as martyrs. These have died in the body, but they live in the spirit with the

Lord. The saints witness to us now, cheering us on like a crowd in an Olympic stadium,

as you and I and all the church living today, The Church Militant, we run our races. They

watch us, they pray for us, they encourage us, and they are examples for us. Imagine

how you or your child might play soccer differently if he or she knew that English soccer

great David Beckham were on the sidelines, watching the match? I think you'd play your

best, maybe even better than your best. The saints surround us and encourage us. Don't

lose heart!

Back to verse 1: "Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us...."

The "running the race" metaphor suggests that the Christian life has a goal. What is the

goal? Remember we said it two weeks ago; it's from the Westminster Catechism. Let's

say it again together: "Our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy his presence forever."

And how do we glorify and enjoy God? While there are many good answers to this

question, try this one: We glorify God and enjoy him by becoming more like Christ.

Verse 1 says that we are to throw off the sin that entangles us. Now if we were sinless,

what would we look like? We'd look like Christ.

Consider what Christ endured. Jesus Christ was a humble working man, poor in

the things of this world. He was an outsider, preaching more often outside than inside

synagogues.

He endured opposition from his family, and from the religious

establishment, and even from one of his twelve disciples. He was denied and betrayed,

and suffered a horrible death on the cross, and he had done nothing wrong. And in

Hebrews 12, verse 4, we who complain, we who profess discouragement, we have not yet

resisted to the point of shedding our blood. Don't lose heart. Losing heart is about your

attitude. It's about your threshold of perceived pain. Don't lose heart!

We can endure so much more than we typically think. Both my sons are now

enduing the pain of pre-season football practice: two-a-days in blistering heat, up-downs,

ending the day sore and tired. Did you see the Christian football movie "Facing the

Giants" last fall? Great film, now on DVD, I heartily recommend it. In it, a high school

football coach who has presided over a failing program at a Christian school decides to

ask his players to give God their best. The coach's best player, a natural leader named

Brock, is half-hearted. The turning point in the movie is when the coach exhorts Brock to

do a "Death Crawl" much farther than Brock thinks he can. In the death crawl, a player

on all fours carries another player on his back.

The farthest any other

player has gone is about 30 yards, but Coach Close encourages Brock, to go as far as he

can blindfolded. Coach yells at Brock, "Don't lose heart!" and he doesn't. It turns out he

crawls all 100 yards. From that point on, every player on the team also gives his best for

God, there is a revival at the school that starts with the football team, they win some very

improbable games, and everyone lives happily ever after.

I wish the movie wasn't all so happy at the end, actually, because the Christian

message isn't that everything will turn around and go well with us in this life if only we'll

believe. God desires to heal, but not everyone is healed in this life. Sometimes our

healing comes after we die. Our path will always have a cross in it. The Christian hope is

the life eternal with Christ. Remember, Abraham, Joseph and Moses did not live to see

the promise fulfilled. Because they did not lose heart, they were faithful, we can inherit

the promise.

Sometimes our failures are the seed of our greatest successes. Don't let failure

discourage you into quitting. Brock tells coach in the big game, "Coach, I'm done, I got

no more left to play. Coach tells Brock, "Don't lose heart! Now is when I need you

most. Never give up!" You know, I hear the words "I'm done" a lot these days. The

wife of a pastor saying, out of the blue, "I'm done with this marriage," and walking out.

The teenager saying, "I'm done with school." People who have been hurt by believers

saying, "I'm done with Church." If you resonate with any of these sentiments, here is a

word from the Lord for you: God is not finished with you yet. Just because you fail at

something is not in itself a good reason to quit! Just because someone did you wrong is

not in itself a good reason to quit! Just because your marriage is not ideal is no reason

for you to quit! Don't lose heart. Never give up. Jesus said, "No man, having put his hand

to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." (Luke 9:62) Spurgeon

said, "God is too good to be unkind, too wise to be mistaken, and when you cannot trace

His hand, you can always trust His heart."

For the joy set before him, Jesus endured the shame. This is simple, but it isn't

easy. How do we do it? Look at verse 2: "Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher

of our faith." Fix your eyes on Jesus. Earlier in the letter, at chapter 3 verse 1, it says,

"Fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess." We think of

him, we look to him. Think of Christ's example. Ask yourself, "What would Jesus do?"

When we look to him, and think of him, he encourages us.

That is the kind of God we worship. When you are getting slammed, God the

Father can bring you through to joy. Situations that seem hopeless are opportunities for

God to release his strength. Reject rejection. Don't lose heart. Be encouraged, and fix

your eyes on him. Run with perseverance the race before you. Don't lose heart. Amen!

If you are discouraged today, God wants to encourage you. One way to do that is

simply to worship him, fixing our eyes on him and singing to him. Another way to be

encouraged is to receive personal prayer during our response time. Our prayer ministers

would love to pray for you personally and confidentially in left aisle of the gym now.

[Close in Prayer]