Christians have faith in Jesus Christ and are saved. It is joyous and
wondrous. Danny Hall writes about the perseverance of faith.
May God bless,
Carl
website -- http://www.nettally.com/saints/
blog -- http://www.anniemayhem.com/cgi-bin/wordpress/
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THE PERSEVERANCE OF FAITH
by Danny Hall
April 13, 1986 marked the crowning achievement of my (rather mediocre)
athletic life. On that day I ran the Vienna Marathon in Vienna, Austria,
along with a number of others from my office. This marathon provided a
metaphor for much of the rest of my life, including my spiritual life,
because life is like a marathon. We live out life not in a brief moment
like
a sprint, but over a long period of time. As we look into God's word to
finish this series of messages, I'm going to refer to the marathon from
time
to time to illustrate how God is preparing us and encouraging us to live
out
our faith over the long haul.
The final occurrence of the statement "The just shall live by faith" is in
the book of Hebrews. Hebrews is in effect a ****trait of Jesus Christ. It
exalts him as few other Scripture texts do in explaining to us how he is
indeed greater than everything else as our Lord and Savior. In 1:1-10:18
the
author shows him to be superior to the prophets as God's final revelation
to
us; superior to the angels; superior to the old covenant of Moses; and
superior to the old sacrificial system, since he died once and for all for
our sins.
In 10:19-25 the author encourages us to draw near to God because of our
deliverance from our sin, to hold fast to the confession of our hope, and
to
be about stimulating one to another to love and good works.
In 10:26-31 he gives us another of several warnings that punctuate the
book:
to not forsake this glorious gospel and great truth. These warnings remind
those who have heard the gospel and have even become involved in the
community of faith, but have not yet fully submitted themselves to the
gospel, that they are in danger of turning their backs on the gospel, of
falling away from all that glorious truth, of trampling underfoot the
wonderful sacrifice of God. The author warns them to stand firm.
Now in the paragraph we are going to examine, 10:32-39, there is an
im****tant transition to the subject of God's call to endure to the end.
But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a
great conflict of sufferings, partly, by being made a public spectacle
through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with
those who were so treated. For you showed sympathy to the prisoners, and
accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for
yourselves a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore, do not throw
away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of
endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive
what
was promised.
"For yet in a very little while,
He who is coming will come, and will not delay.
But My righteous one shall live by faith;
And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him."
But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who
have faith to the preserving of the soul.
The key point of this paragraph is given in verses 35-36: "Therefore, do
not
throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of
endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive
what
was promised." The word translated here as "confidence" (parrhesia in the
Greek text) appears over and over again in the book of Hebrews. Sometimes
it's
used specifically, as in drawing boldly (this is the same word, parrhesia)
into the presence of God because of what Christ has done (see 4:16;
10:19-22). But here it's used in a broader sense that is almost synonymous
with faith. It is a boldness, a faith we have in God to go forward. It is
trusting him completely.
"Don't give that up!" the author says. "You need to endure." All of us
face
struggles in our Christian life. No one ever said the Christian life was
going to be easy. It's impossible! We are going to have questions we
cannot
answer and difficulties that seem insurmountable. One of the shortcomings
in
so much modern preaching is that you're told if you come to Christ,
somehow
everything is going to be wonderful. You will cease having problems,
everything will be straightened out, and you'll be healthy, wealthy, and
blessed. Now of course, when we come to faith in Christ and are rightly
related to him, our lives are enriched beyond measure in many wonderful
and
beautiful ways. But the truth is that we also live our faith in a world
filled with difficult situations. How do we meet those challenges, endure,
and keep hold of our confidence?
The author points to three things that will help us endure to the end. One
is given in the first part of our paragraph, one in the last part, and one
by implication in the surrounding context. Let's examine them.
First, he calls on us to remember God's gracious provision for our
endurance
in the past.
Remember God's provision in past suffering
"But remember the former days.." The author is saying, "You've already
gone
through difficult times and you've made it this far." Focusing on what God
has already done reminds us that we can trust him for the future.
I found a parallel to this in my experience with the Vienna Marathon.
Running the marathon on April 13th necessitated training for it during the
winter, which was difficult. One day of training sticks in my mind. I was
I
Kraków, Poland with a colleague, and the temperature outside was 10
degrees
Fahrenheit, but the wind chill factor was subzero. There was a foot of
snow
on the ground. This colleague had originally intended to run the marathon
with me, but had become injured and had to quit training. He was lying on
the bed in a warm hotel room, wearing his long johns, reading a book, and
laughing at me while I laced up my shoes to go run in that cold, bitter
wind. I did the 12-mile run my training schedule called for that day in
those miserable conditions.
There were times when running the actual race got difficult as well. At
the
beginning I could easily run way faster than I needed to in all the
excitement, and toward the end I got energized by the excitement of
fini****ng. But all that distance in the middle was hard. At about the 25th
kilometer (of 42 total), I started having excruciating pain in my right
knee. I wondered how I was going to make it to the end of the race. In the
process of handling that, one of the things that happened was that I began
to remember all my preparation, all the things I had already accomplished
up
to that point. I found I had built up mental strength as well as physical
strength, knowing what I had accomplished. I was able to draw on it when
my
knee was killing me.
In the same way, in our spiritual lives we've already come a long way, the
author says. "Remember the former days when things were really tough? You
were being persecuted and challenged, yet you were able to make it to this
point through God's grace." That is one of the ways we are able to endure.
How do we mentally prepare for difficult times? Notice the kind of people
we
have to be in order to have past experience to draw on. "After being
enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly, by being
made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by
becoming sharers with those who were so treated. For you showed sympathy
to
the prisoners, and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing
that you have for yourselves a better possession and an abiding one."
These people were characterized by two things. The first was a willingness
to suffer for their faith. They had lived out their faith in the face of
opposition. They had been persecuted and challenged. Second, they were
willing to identify with others who were suffering. At the height of the
persecution of the church in the first years of its existence, some were
being imprisoned for their faith. Prisoners were sometimes starving and
very
cold. There are beautiful stories of other believers who went and
ministered
to them. They took food and clothing to them, risking their own safety by
being identified with those who were incarcerated for their faith. The
author of Hebrews champions them: "You've been wonderful in that way! You
were willing to give your all for Christ!"
When you and I adopt the mentality in life that Christ is everything to us
and we're willing to live our lives totally and sacrificially committed to
him, regardless of what we face--whether it's persecution, seizure of our
property, or loss of other things that are precious to us--God graciously
sustains us. Then we build up a legacy of God's faithfulness that we can
draw on later.
I've grown fond of the book Finding God at Harvard. It's a collection of
personal testimonies by men and women who attended Harvard and Radcliff
over
the years. They speak of their faith in Christ and what that has meant. In
the epilogue to that book Kelly Monroe, the general editor and founder of
the Veritas Forum, writes these words:
"The following year, we worked with World Relief in El Salvador, helping
to
redeem the condition of eight thousand people living in the city dump.
Writer Peter Clark introduced us to a man who forgave his torturers and
visited them in prison. As I relayed this story to Becky Baer [another
friend], she told me about her South African friend who threw himself
around
a boy who was about to be burned, "necklaced" [a burning tire placed
around
the neck], for being an informer. He knew it was a gamble, because they
might have killed them both. 'As Christians we have many freedoms,' says
Becky, 'one of which is the freedom to die because of the hope we have in
the resurrection from the dead.' This life has no hold on us, so we are
beginning to live it with courage." (1)
Once we are able to completely yield ourselves to Christ, we are free in
ways that no one else can understand to give ourselves completely to his
glory and live courageously for him. These people were not absorbed with
worldly things, not even their own safety. They were motivated by eternal
values. Paul says in Romans 8:18 that there is no suffering in this world
that can compare to the glory that Christ has for us. We too must become
men
and women who have values of eternity, who are not tied down by the things
of this world. While God may bless us with all kinds of wonderful things
to
enjoy, we must hold on to them lightly, because to live for God's glory
allows us then to experience his gracious help in times of trouble, and on
that we build a legacy of God's faithfulness.
One of the many lessons I learned while working and traveling in Eastern
Europe was what it meant for people to love God so much that the things of
this earth meant little to them. Most of my friends in Eastern Europe then
were rather poor. They didn't have anywhere near the resources I had even
living as a missionary. God gave our team wonderful op****tunities to meet
some very gracious people. We would go into their homes and they would
prepare a meal for us, and I knew they were putting food before us that
was
way more than they could afford, and perhaps even the only piece of meat
they would enjoy for the whole month! I was so humbled by their gracious
love and hospitality.
One such occasion occurred on my son Christopher's third birthday. Ginger
and Christopher and a young woman who was working in our office were
accompanying me to Poland. We all celebrated Christopher's birthday in the
morning at a hotel in Warsaw. Then we drove to a small village in southern
Poland where we were to spend a couple of days with some dear friends of
ours, Czeslaw and Helena Basara. They had two children, Bogus and Dorotka.
We found out that Dorotka had a birthday that day, too. She turned six.
When
the Basaras found out about Christopher's birthday, they pulled out the
food
left over from her birthday party and had another party for us.
Their children were always so gracious to Christopher. There was a
particular little teddy bear that Christopher latched on to. He played
with
it a lot that day and the next, and when it was time for us to leave,
Dorotka gave that teddy bear to Christopher because he had enjoyed it so
much. The young woman who was traveling with us told us later, after
talking
to Helena, that the teddy bear was the only birthday gift Dorotka had
received. But she had great joy in turning around and giving it to her
little friend. These folks held the things of this world loosely because
their love for God and the love for others that grew out of that were far
greater.
That's the kind of people who are described here in Hebrews 10. They gave
themselves so fully to God that they were free to live their lives
courageously. And as they saw God graciously sup****t them, that legacy of
God's faithfulness was built up and enriched. That's the first way we are
able to endure.
The latter part of this paragraph gives us the second way we can endure:
we
believe in the ultimate victory of God.
Believe in the ultimate victory of God
Notice that the author expresses the idea through Old Testament quotes,
which include the theme statement of this series. Verses 37-38:
"'For yet in a very little while,
He who is coming will come, and will not delay.
But My righteous one shall live by faith;
And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.'"
These quotes are taken from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the
Old
Testament that was available in that day. The first phrase, "For yet in a
very little while," is a quote from Isaiah 26:20, the context of which is
similar to Habakkuk, which we studied in the first message of the series
(Discovery Paper #4671). In both of these texts there is a call to
patiently
await the day when God will bring his justice to pass.
The rest of the quote comes from Habakkuk itself. "He who is coming will
come" is a slight change from the Hebrew. Habakkuk says, "It will
certainly
come," referring to the fulfillment of God's promise to bring judgment on
the evil nations that had attacked Israel. The author of Hebrews
personifies
that day of God's justice in the Lord Jesus Christ, who in his second
coming
will rule as the just Lord and Savior of all. The author renders the
expression intensely: "He who is coming will come." The duplication of the
idea signifies the surety of that event.
What he is asking us to do is to look forward to the day when God's
justice
will reign, when Jesus Christ, the risen Lord of the universe, will be
revealed in all his glory at his coming, and every knee will bow and every
tongue confess him as Lord. That day is sure! As we struggle to endure in
faith, we are told to lift up our eyes toward that day when he will indeed
set all things right and vindicate his people for having been faithful to
him throughout their lives.
Then the author says, "But my righteous one shall live by faith." He's
emphasizing that it's the ones God has called out, his own, who will live
by
faith, trusting in the assured outcome of God's victory, and keep going.
He
contrasts these to the ones who would shrink back. The quotation here
inverts the order of these two ideas from Habakkuk 2:4 to emphasize living
by faith over shrinking back and not really trusting God in his ultimate
victory. The translation "shrinking back" is from the Septuagint
translation
of the Old Testament.
What the author is saying is that there is a finish line to all of this, a
day when the suffering will be over and Christ will be crowned before all
the universe to see, and we march forward toward that great day in faith.
Remembering my marathon again, I thought I was going to have to quit, the
pain in my knee was so intense. Between the 25- and 30-kilometer points,
with every step it felt as if someone were sticking a knife into the side
of
my knee. But I pushed forward, getting closer and closer to that finish
line. I passed the 30-kilometer point, took a drink at one of the drink
stations, and tried to find some way to stretch that knee out to relieve
the
pain. I realized that after the months I'd been preparing for this, I was
going to somehow finish this race if I had to drag my leg over that finish
line. I don't know if it was the endorphins that kicked in or what, but as
I
took off again, the pain went away. I kept running and ran the last 10
kilometers faster than any other part of the race, and the last stretch
the
fastest I had ever run.
The cool thing about the Vienna Marathon is that it finishes in the
Heldenplatz, which is right in front of the old Hofburg, the palace where
the ruling family lived back in time. Heldenplatz literally means Plaza of
the Heroes. The course of the Marathon curls through enormous stone
archways
and onto the Heldenplatz, and there's the finish line. So as you draw
closer, you realize you are about to enter into the Plaza of the Heroes,
and
you're energized to finish the race! You see that finish line!
In Hebrews 12:1-2 the author talks about Jesus as the author and perfecter
of our faith, and says that we are to keep our eyes fixed on him. Jesus is
our finish line. He is the perfecter, the finisher, of our faith. And by
keeping our eyes on him, by believing absolutely in the ultimate victory
of
God, we go forward toward that goal, able to keep our confidence and
endure.
A third way for us to keep going is implied by the context of this
paragraph. Summing up in verse 39, the author says, "But we are not of
those
who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the
preserving of the soul." We are part of the company of the faithful.
The faithful encourage us
This paragraph transitions us into chapter 11, which presents a fuller
explanation of what faith does in illustrations of life after life after
life of those who remained faithful to the end. These are stories of men
and
women of faith throughout the history of the Bible who laid everything on
the line for God, having only the future outcome of God's glory and
victory
to trust in. They hadn't yet even tasted what we have now following
Christ's
death and resurrection. But these wonderful stories of the faithful in
chapter 11 then lead into the introduction of chapter 12, where the
faithful
are described for us as a "great cloud of witnesses." We do not have to
endure this alone. God has placed us in the company of others who are
faithfully running the race, and now we have this great cloud of witnesses
who faithfully stood for Christ, and their very testimony cries out to us
and cheers us on.
The last memory I want to share of fini****ng the marathon is about the
crowd
lining the streets. Some in that crowd I knew personally: Ginger,
Christopher, who was still three at the time, and some other wives and
children of friends of mine who were in the race. They were at the
starting
line, and they hopped on the subway to different points of the race as we
ran in order to keep cheering us on.
On that particular day it was very cold for April, and I started out
wearing
gloves, but I got warmed up early in the race and threw them to Ginger at
one point. But when we crossed one of the bridges over the Danube, there
was
a howling, freezing, north wind plowing through the river valley. By that
time not only was I dead tired, with my knee killing me, but now I was
freezing again and my hands were numb from the cold. But there was our
little entourage cheering us on again, so I yelled, "I need my gloves!"
Ginger was having trouble finding them, so one of the other wives pulled
off
her own gloves and tossed them to me. In the pictures of my fini****ng the
race, I have a pair of women's red wool gloves on my hands!
It was so encouraging to have others there cheering us on, not only the
people I knew but the whole Austrian crowd. Europeans have a great way of
making a high "Woop, woop, woop, woop!" call as you run by instead of
whistling or cheering. As I was coming toward the finish line, the street
was lined with hundreds or thousands of people, and every step of the way
they were yelling, "Woop, woop, woop," and clapping and cheering us on.
And
the crowd gave me energy!
That's the picture here. We draw strength from the community of the
faithful
around us, and it spurs us on toward victory.
If we can grab hold of these three things--remembering that God has
graciously brought us this far, believing in the ultimate victory of God,
and drawing strength from the community of faith, we can hold on to our
confidence and endure to the end.
Let's review what we've learned about what it means to live by faith in
this
series. First, living by faith means that we see things through God's
eyes,
not through our own narrow perspective. Second, it means we trust God for
the resources that we need to break the bonds of our own sinfulness and
provide everything we need for life and godliness. Third, it means we keep
our eyes on the goal, enduring to the end. "Now may the God of peace
Himself
sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved
complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful
is
He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass." (1 Thessalonians
5:23-24.)
Scripture quotations are taken from New American Standard Bible, ć 1960,
1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 The Lockman
Foundation.
Used by permission.
Notes:
(1) Kelly Monroe, Finding God at Harvard, © 1996. Published by Zondervan
Publi****ng House, Grand Rapids, MI. Pps. 353-354.
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Church.
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