Ready let's go how are y'all doing when I was in Jackson, Mississippi? I was a youth minister and as you minister in a wealthy church and so we did expensive trips And that's kind of what you do when you're a youth minister wealthy church And we went to Colorado every summer to do this kind of Noah's art thing You know whitewater rafting and repelling and over a two-day period we do this peak climb up to 12,000 or 13,000 feet Which drove our students just right to the edge of what they could do? It just pushed them to their limits and one year it seemed to push them beyond their limits We got a girl with this and Kent was Karen Whitworth and Karen You know, she kind of ignored all the advice about altitude sickness and all that good stuff and as the guys kept pushing us and the guys were They were pushing they knew they I mean these guys climbed this peak every other day all summer right and they knew what it Took to get there and they knew the time frames and And they were pretty careful, but they just kept pushing and at one point Karen utterly melted down I actually Facebooked her about this today this week is like what happened she goes I don't know I just melted down and so she's like five one and This you know guides like six three in this hilarious. You just turned around he goes all right Keep going keep going and she finally turns around and goes you listen you've made it. You just don't know it You've already made it You just don't know it and she looked around there was this big rock outcropping and out on the on top of the rock where all her friends taking pictures And she was so overwhelmed by how hard the journey had been and Overwhelmed by this idea that she had to keep going that she missed the fact that she was practically there And today what we're gonna study together is constancy being endurance Add to your add to your faith virtue add to your virtue knowledge add to your knowledge consistency No, but it's chuckling. I find that funny. Y'all know. This is not my forte I'm not ever gonna priest you a sermon on, you know, not quitting because as you all know I am a quitter I had the list of things that I have quit is very long Pretty much every diet I ever tried every devotional habit. I've ever tried every New exercise that I've ever tried. I'm a very very experienced quitter Never ever engaged me with any And any online gangs like Scrabble or chest. I'm gonna tell you right now. I cheat because it's easier quitting is easy and you may be thinking one for some reason. I am still a Christian For some reason after 52 years 48 of which I believe that Jesus has loved me for some reason after 30 years of being an ordained Minister. I'm still here who's as good at quitting as I am has done something for that long. You've got something to learn for me Now let me tell you something Most people when they teach this kind of sermon the title would be something like never stop never stopping That sounds good. I like never stop never stopping. I wouldn't know how that feels but it sounds good I'm going to hear to tell you if you want to be consistent if You want to add to your faith endurance If you want to make it in the long run that is a lot longer than you think Never stop restarting never stop restarting Never get disappointed and discouraged because you have stopped. You're going to But just never stop restarting. God is always here to welcome you back. He's always here to welcome you back This table will be set for you every Sunday So just never stop restarting Never stop coming home We're going to talk about that today. We're going to talk about how Christianity is a long is a long What is it? They're in the title. I can't remember. It's a long obedience in the same direction the long obedience in the same direction in the book By Eugene Peterson about discipleship that I've never finished see I'm a quitter But we're going to learn about how Christianity is a long obedience in the same direction. We're going to talk about why it's so hard Why don't we have to go on so long and finally we're going to learn about how our Completion is assured Finishing it the race is assured for you before we do that. Let's read God the text together. Please stand as you read From Hebrews chapter 12 verses 1 through 11 here the word of the Lord
therefore Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses Let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us Looking to Jesus the founder and the perfector of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and to see that the right hand of the throne of God Consider him who endured such from center such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted In your struggle against sin you've not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood and Have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor be weary when Reproved by him for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives It is for discipline that you have to endure God is treating you as sons For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline in which all have participated then you are illegitimate children and not sons Besides this we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them Shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time it seemed best to them But he disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by That's why the reading of God's word all men are like grass all of our glories like the flowers of the field Thursday night I was eating chicken and a tooth fell onto my plate The grass withers and the flowers fall But not God's word God's word stands forever. You may be seated never stop restarting Never stop restarting Christian is a long Processing growth just like anything valuable in the world really comes over time comes over a long period of time God is growing oaks of righteousness That's where we get the name of our church from actually those of you who are here remember that we named our church when I was on sabbatical when I was on sabbatical praying for our church and and we were at that time redeemer Presbyterian But we were moving across from a deeper covenant and that seemed like a rude thing to do have two redeemers on the each other's street And so since they were here first we had to change our names and and I began meditating and meditating on Isaiah 61 That God is planting us as oaks of righteousness And I like that we already had the river of life in our and our themes sermon in our logos We combined it to so that we would be river oaks of the oaks of righteousness. They're planted alongside this river of life And guys oaks are impressive things They're beautiful and strong things eventually eventually You know When it's just this big when it's a year two years old you know this big They're not that impressive. You can run over them with your car. You can run over them with your body And you we talked before about how oak trees destroy sidewalks If they they're able to pick up huge pieces of rumble of Sorry marble or cement eventually And can you imagine you know bringing a little sapling to life and saying look this sidewalk They're ridiculous eventually Consistency over time And that's what God is doing with us. He's calling us to be patient and so wait He Wants us to do basically what these trees do. What are the trees do? They receive the water? They receive the light They their roots grow down into the nourishment and And and Martin Luther says we are at that passive when it comes to grace. We receive it. We receive God's Grace we receive it just like the soil receives the water Come back here where the what you are smarter than note tree. You can come to where the water is right and Then come back here week after week and receive that living water Eat this meal week after week and and feed your soul nourish your soul on the bread of Christ the bread of life Come week after week and and receive the light of God that is the true light of the world and Wait you know after time what happens the trees grow 10 15 20 years Then what happens if you drive a car into that it's gonna stop you cold Wrap your car wrap around that thing like a bowtie Because God has made it strong eventually We don't like that. I especially don't like that We think that things that take a long time are worthless. I grew up being conditioned I think everybody grew up in the 80s grew up being conditioned that things that took a long time were worthless and I'll tell you how we found that out If you watch daytime TV during the 80s, which I did a lot of and you saw a lot of these cheap infomercials You know, Gensu knives and wonder whisks and the little spinny thing that's supposed to cut your potatoes and great your cheese and I bought it one of each of those and What I did the two things that you noticed for this one they took forever to get here Four to six weeks for delivery Six to eight weeks for delivery. That's hard for you to imagine these days, right? You could order something on your phone right now It'd probably be home before you would be but back then it took four every I remember that I don't have four to six weeks for Real standard. I thought it was 46 weeks. It seemed like by the time those things came in the mail. You've forgotten you ordered them and Then it would come in the mail and you would open it up and it was so much smaller than it looked on TV a Little bitty and You you would start to work and it would break and In our mind somewhere deep in our hearts got this idea that things that took a long time were worthless But that's not true It's not true. If you want to build great furniture it takes a while if you want to build something beautiful it takes a while and God takes His time we do may not like that, but he takes his time He waited two thousand years between Abraham and Jesus He knew he made a promise. He was gonna get around to keeping it He was waiting until everything was just right until as Paul says in Galatians the fullness of time had come He waits decades to grow his trees. He takes his time He'd wait centuries to grow redwoods. He's taking his time. He's he's waiting for millennia to transform the world Every every nation every every area every people of God who've been people of God for long enough to see kind of a rise and Follow their own area whether it be Rome or Europe or America We we tend to think that all the Christian world is surrounding around us And so when there's a little bit of a decline we get all nervous and scared, but you got to understand God is redeeming the world one day we will all sing together The nations of this world have become the nations of our God and of his Christ and he will reign forever and ever And he's not going to rush the end until that day comes so Relax and never stop restarting and it means that you we spend a lifetime a Lifetime of becoming so breathe me We be content for it to make take a lifetime of becoming Um, I think my favorite illustration of this comes from Marjorie Williams in the Velveteen rabbit Um, and I wish I was to act as I could read the story more often Those of you who don't know just go buy the book. I'm not gonna explain it to you. It's just too good. You need to read it But it's about a little bunny who wants to be real And she said ask the skin horse one day who's old and shabby what is real? Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and stick out handle? Real isn't how you were made said the skin horse. It's the thing that happens to you When a child loves you for a long long time not just to play with but really loves you then you become real Does it hurt as a rabbit? Sometimes said the skin horse for he was always truthful When you are real you don't mind being hurt Does it happen all at once like being wound up? He asked or bit by bit It doesn't happen all at once said the skin horse you become it takes a long time That is why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily or have sharp edges or have to be carefully kept Generally by the time you are real most of your hair has been loved off and your eyes drop out And you get loose in the joints and very shabby But these things don't matter at all Because once you are real you can't be ugly Except to people who don't understand Takes a long time God is loving you into realness He doesn't wave a magic wand and make you instantly perfectly holy He takes his time He works through you and he loves you Into reality Into his image for you And a lot of times you get so overwhelmed and so discouraged That you forget how much he's done already I wish you could see yourself from my perspective sometimes I remember a few years ago had one of you come into my office crying and we're talking about life and made the comment But I thought becoming a Christian made life better It does It just takes a while And you've grown so much this that day And you're so much more mature since that day And I've gotten to watch it And you're like caring you're kind of sitting there crying going I can't go another step It's my job to say you're a lot closer than you think Just a few more Just never stop restarting It's consistency over time but but it's hard why is it hard Why is it hard It's hard because Of the death of our sickness It's hard because our sin goes a lot further than we think when the Bible takes the time to describe what we're like Before we come to Christ it says things like every thought of man's heart is only evil all the time It says things like there there is no one who good does good everything that we touch is wicked It says things like we're dead in trans and transgressions and sins And and and it takes a while to get that out if you want to cleanse that kind of thing it takes a while And you have to get it all out you can't leave any of it You got to get every speck of it out That's like it's like cleaning up sewage if you if you use just leave just the slightest bit the stench is still going to be there You probably never cleaned up too much have you One one Sunday before church. I was over in my office and doing the things I'd normally do in the office before church and and I flushed The commode and the water just sat there And you know what you do when the water just is there right you go get a plunger You start plunging And I kept pushing harder and the lot of kept coming right back up and I push hard and water come right back up and I Didn't know that's at the time, but our churches on a septic system And so all the commodes are connected and the septic tank was full It wasn't receiving anything What I also didn't know was that in the shed next door they had tried to install bathrooms at one point But because the city wouldn't give them the the necessary certificates They just abandoned that attempt and so where there were supposed to be commodes there were just holes in the floor
And every time I pushed Squirt we're just coming out of those holes And we found out two days later we didn't even know to go look we found out two days later There was an inch of sewage in that shed Now we didn't clean it up All right, we called somebody service master since someone with a hazmat suit It's just a weird feeling to kind of look out your office window and seeing this guy in all white You know hood, you know a tank to breathe out of And he had to get every I mean every single thing in the shed had to be taken out and sanitized Because they had the smell of death all over it and it took a long time And you have the smell of death all over you before you come to Christ and then it takes a long time for him to thoroughly cleanse you It takes a long time because of the death of our sickness It takes a long time because the beauty of what God is building You know C.S. Lewis and Mary and Williamson both use the illustration of kind of being a being a house All right, and we've invited Jesus into the house and he's going to make it better It's awesome those first few weeks, right? Cleaning mobs the floors for us and he kind of rearranges the drapes and he makes everything in it. I said the word drapes Um, he makes everything in it just look a little bit better And you're thinking to yourself man life is good now that Jesus is my roommate And then one day you're sleeping in your bed when a wrecking ball slams into the side of the house And you're shaking out of bed you're saying what are you doing to my life? We were finished and he go oh, we had him he started You want a little cottage? I'm ripping this ball down. I'm going to build a wing. I'm ripping this ball down I'm going to build a wing. I'm going to tear this thing down to the studs And I'm going to turn you into a beautiful castle That is worthy of my father living in you I'm doing so much more in you than you would ever expect. Do you believe that? You know the apostle Paul says in verse 2 and 6 Um, we will judge angels one day What the world does that mean? Why do angels need to be judged? I don't know. We're just going to be cool And we're going to do it And that's fascinating But that's the kind of being the kind of wisdom the kind of grace that the Lord is filling you with and preparing you for it It's going to take a while Takes a long time It takes a long time because of the depth of our sin It takes a long time because of the beauty of what he's building And it takes a long time because we're part of the greater good God is not just working on us Uh, that text everybody loves to memorize, right? God works all things according to his will for the good of those who love him Have you ever noticed that all the pronouns in that Passage the entire passage are all plural I mean I'd be good for you There are some of you that I honestly think have been sanctified enough Like you've gone through enough And I want to ask the Lord hey don't you think she needs a break I feel like she's going she's good enough She's my own mother And the Lord says well Ricky that's because you don't know what you're doing And I'm using her to sanctify you I'm like oh yeah see how you said she was your remote role model Yes, well That's why I'm doing this to show you what grace under suffering looks like I'm doing more than then just working on her I'm walking on everyone around her That's what the Apostle Paul means when he says Uh, in 2nd Corinthians 1 to comfort others with the comfort that we've received That when God is working in all one of us he's working in all of us and he's He's making all of us better by the work he's doing Um, that's why my wife and encourage me to write a blog last year She said you need to write about your depression. I said why I think I thought about it enough And she said there are other people going through it
There are other people going through it. My only thought was well if anybody gets anything good I have this two years of pitched darkness. Let them try And it was good there before me but God is sanctifying the entire church then the entire world through Through what he's doing in us And it sometimes that feels overwhelming but what keeps us from being overwhelmed in that the reason why we are assured of completion Is because Jesus has already done the heavy lifting He's he's already made sure it's happening in his body He's already crucified the flesh in his spirit He has already healed our broken hearts Everything that's necessary has been provided for it was provided on that cross when he said it is finished He didn't mean all right. I've done my part. You do your part He said it's finished The work is done the heavy lifting is over And that's important for you to understand when you read these texts like this text in Hebrews Right, it kind of sounds like if you're not if you're not paying attention if you're not taking a Full biblical point of view on this text then it almost sounds like he's trying to shame you doesn't it Jesus more tartar than you Look what he did and you're wanting to stop Don't think That's how the Bible talks to us usually and by I don't think I mean I absolutely know that's not how the Bible talks He doesn't use Jesus to shame you Jesus came to take away your shame He doesn't use Jesus to guilt you Jesus was crucified to take away your guilt And this is our motivation It's not that it's not that Jesus did it so we don't have to do it And it's not that Jesus did it so we need to copy him and do it as well it said Jesus has Born the penalty for our sin so that you can do it And his spirit has come inside you so that you can follow him and you can walk and you can continue So continue you're assurances is secured he's Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6 that you were bought with the price He is spent too much on his investment. He's not going to let you go
And he says throughout the New Testament you were adopted as sons this text in Hebrews You know when when God disciplines you it's the sign that you are sons you are his I love adoption so much. It's all over the place in our church and it's beautiful to my own family and it's beautiful And one of the things I love about adoption is this In ancient Romans when you adopted someone oftentimes when a man didn't have a child or specifically a male child in that patriarchal society he would adopt his servant And that's in that way that servant will keep the inheritance kind of quote-unquote in the family But the beautiful thing was that in that time all the way up until now and God's providence This has been a law for as long as we have known that laws exist That once you adopt a child an adopted child cannot be disinherited You can abandon your own children. I've threatened it But you cannot abandon adopted child It was permanent then and it's permanent now and I think that's important reason why the apostle Paul kept using the word You've been adopted you've been given the spirit of sonship. He is never going to abandon you You can't abandon that just keep coming back your father is here to welcome you Keep coming back your father is here to welcome you He is he who has saved you is greater than all Jesus says and and no one is able to snatch them from my father's hand and that's in John 10 and in John that passage in John 10 uh Bible interpreters have argued about it for years and years. What does Jesus mean when he says Greater than all because it's weird. We can't forget what the subject is And some interpreters say it means that God is greater than all and no one is strong enough to snatch snatch us from his hand and others Say know it means that the gift that God has given to Jesus is greater than all and because of the value of the gift that that's you Because of the value of the gift no one's going to snatch you from his father's hands And I like that kind of stuff because both are true both are true And what God is making in you is beautiful And preparing you for our appearance before God And no one is going to stop that work the completion is assured Because of how much he has spent because of our adoption because he is greater than all because in his eyes We are the pearl of great price that he gave everything he had for We can be assured My old friend Boo Ferris died. I've heard me talk about Boo a few times. Boo was a picture for the Boston Red Sox in his prime And He pitched on the same team that Ted we everybody knows Ted nobody knows Boo, but Ted Williams who was was on the team and they went to the world series. He pitched in the seventh game of the world series stem usual in the Cardinals beating and He would tell me stories about when he was a boy coming up He lived on the far west side of the state against and near the river And he went to Mississippi state and he had a hitchhike. That's the only way they got around back then He would tell me about you know walking through down highway 82 and when you got to the intersections with 49 or with 51 You'd build fires you would sit there and wait for a ride and you'd build a fire and whoever Was the last one there if you got in the car truck You'd put all the wood you could find on that fire so it would still be burning when the next hitchhiker came And I just thought about it. Like can you imagine walking up to him on a rainy cold winter day
Boo in his in his trophy room had a kept a baseball weekly and ended up becoming the sporting news and called the sporting news now, but he was on the cover And they called it the Ferris wheel because he'd beaten every team in the American League that summer And so it was his face and his arm was a Ferris wheel and every team was getting a ride on it
When on some cold rainy day and winter when he's trying to get to start Well, don't you wish you could have carried that newspaper with you and took it to him and said this is gonna be you You're miserable. You're cold. You're wondering if it's worth it But one day soon, buddy. You're gonna be the best in the world Don't give up Don't stop restarting And that's my job for you. That's why we study books like revelation That's why I want to tell you about glorification That's why I want to encourage you with these pictures of Jesus wiping every tear from your eyes and and when Jesus appears You will be like him full of glory. That's gonna be you No one can stand in the way of that That's your sporting news that day is coming. It's not that far off And all you have to do to get there is don't stop restarting Please pray with me Father heaven we do get tired and we get discouraged and we want to quit
We pray that you give us the grace to never stop and to follow you
And to keep on coming back
Father for those who are discouraged today and just wonder why why it keeps on I pray they would remember their sonship remember That you will never abandon or forsake them In Jesus name