August 18, 2013 – Pentecost 13
Hebrews 12:1-13
“LET US RUN WITH PERSEVERANCE”
Pastor Thomas Kneser
Brothers and sisters in Christ,
A new sports season is swinging into high gear. Football season is beginning. High
school, college and profession teams are all practicing hard for the upcoming games. Other
sports, especially in high school, have thousands of athletes from our area participating in cross
country, volleyball and soccer. Several of our teens are involved in these things, and I know
some of you older folks can relate to what they are going through since you were involved in
athletics in your younger years, no matter what the level of competition. Our society is very
sports oriented. Most of us know the great deal of hard work, the hours and hours of practice,
the training and sacrifice which are required in order to be successful on the athletic field.
That’s the picture the author of this letter to the Hebrews uses. He talks about running
a race, about endurance and perseverance, about encountering opposition. He’s using this idea
to describe our lives as Christians. It’s a fitting picture because both involve expending energy.
Both can include pain and suffering along the way. Both require disciple and sacrifice. And
there is a goal, some kind of ultimate reward or accomplishment. We are not talking about
something that is very easy, this struggle we call the Christian life. One of the Greek words
used here is our word “agony.” Like it or not, that’s what God tells us is coming if we are really
dedicated to him. So, dear friends,
LET US RUN WITH PERSEVERANCE
The first way we show that we are serious about running this race is by throwing off
EVERYTHING THAT HINDERS AND THE SIN THAT SO EASILY ENTANGLES. For someone in an
athletic competition it means that they participate as unencumbered as possible. They want to
be wearing only the essentials for their uniform. A runner, a baseball or volleyball player
doesn’t wear a winter jacket and heavy boots. Those things would keep them from performing
up to their highest level. A football player, if he is carrying the ball, if he can help it, doesn’t run
directly at the one trying to tackle him. He runs around those kinds of obstacles, opponents
whose sole purpose to bring him down before he reaches the goal line.
That’s the way it is in this competition we call living the Christian life. If we are serious
about it, and I sincerely hope all of you are, then we have to throw off or avoid everything that
hinders us along the way. For us that would be people or things or places that would keep God
and Christ from having first priority in our lives. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having a
good job, of acquiring a lot of money, of having a loving family. Those are tremendous blessings from God. But when we let those things become hindrances to our Christian living, when
those things begin to push God and his Word to the side, then that’s a hindrance that has to be
avoided. Anything which would hold us back in our faith, in the devotion we are to show to our
God, that’s what makes it a hindrance, something that will keep us from competing as God
wants us to.
Or there is the sin which so easily entangles us. It might look small and not that serious,
checking out those porn websites, having one drink too many, not giving our best at work. It
doesn’t take much for those sins to reach out and snare us. Think of how easy it is to skip
church one week, then another, then another, and pretty soon we are getting a call from one of
the elders or pastors. How often don’t we catch ourselves telling one lie and then we have to
tell another to cover up the first one? Sin is like a boa constrictor. If we let it begin to wrap itself around us, even from the smallest beginning, pretty soon it can take over and crush us,
cause us to quit the race.
Throw those things off, God tells us here. Fight to keep them from getting entrenched
in your life. Run with perseverance. Yes, it’s a real struggle. WE have this sinful nature we
were born with. It will be like a monkey on our backs for the rest of our lives. We have to control it. We have to beat it into submission. We don’t want to end up like King Saul of Israel,
who let the power and prestige of his position lead him away from God. Don’t let greed and
material things lead to your spiritual downfall, like it did with Jesus’ disciples, Judas. We need
to stay strong and in good spiritual condition. And the only way to do that is to stay close to
our loving and forgiving God. Only through Christ, through his precious word and sacraments,
do we receive the necessary energy and nourishment to combat sin, to overcome the obstacles.
Using his Word, studying it, putting it into practice, all these things are ways to increase our
stamina so that we run with perseverance. Our eternal futures hang in the balance. We can’t
afford to quit the race. The goal of eternal life in heaven is just too precious.
And that’s something we already have in hand, something that is and will remain ours as
long as we continue to fix our eyes on Jesus. He’s the one who makes it possible in the first
place. He is the founder and perfecter of our faith. He endured the cross with its shame, a
form of execution reserved for the worst of criminals. Yet Jesus went through that kind of
death in order to pay for our sins. He faced the opposition of sinful men, the very creatures he
had come to rescue from hell. And he did it without the slightest thought of revenge or hatred.
He was pure love, this Savior of ours. Through that perfect life, that innocent suffering and
death we have been declared free from all the guilt we had piled up because of our sins. We
have become part of God’s team, the Holy Christian Church, people headed together down the
race course toward heaven.
And it’s all because of Jesus. His work earned our salvation. His promised Spirit worked
the conviction in our hearts that Jesus is our personal Savior. Jesus is what our faith is all about.
It doesn’t do us any good to rely on our own abilities to get to heaven. It doesn’t do us any
good to look to any other religion or philosophy for the answers to life’s most important questions. We are to keep our eyes focused on Jesus. You know who he is. You have been convinced by the power of God that he is your Savior. You’re in this race because of him and
you’re running it solely for him. By focusing on him, bending all your energy and effort into living for him, you will win this race. By staying close to him through regular contact with his
word you can’t lose. You will persevere. You will reach the goal. You will enjoy eternal life.
Jesus has already won the race for you.
But, boy, it sure is tough sometimes, isn’t it? That’s what these Hebrew Christians were
thinking. They were being tempted to go back to their old religion. Following Christ seemed to
call for so much more dedication than their old way of life. Plus, they were undergoing persecution. While they had not yet been called on to give their lives because of their faith, it was
still a struggle. Was it all worth it? What was God doing to them? They were still in the process of learning and understanding what it meant to be one of Jesus’ disciples.
And that’s where discipline comes in. Ask most parents what they need help with in
raising their children and a lot of time you hear that word – discipline. But what is it? The
Greek word means the training necessary to lead a child to maturity. IT involves two things.
One is instruction, the other is correction. Discipline is the leading and teaching that a parent
does so that the child knows what the right kind of behavior is. IT also is the correction of misbehavior, using whatever method is necessary to stop the sinful actions.
The Bible has a lot to say about parental discipline, not all of which sits well with child
psychologists and educators today. When it comes to teaching the right kind of living, well,
that’s what the whole law of God is all about. The Ten Comm. are the best place to start. They
give wisdom from the all knowing God himself. They are his personal instructions to us. Teaching our children, and remembering ourselves what those commandments mean, goes a long
way in maintaining discipline.
But when there is sinful behavior, the loving parent will take action to correct it. The
writer says here, What son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined, then you
are illegitimate children and not true sons. There’s a close connection between discipline and
sonship. It’s part of a loving relationship. If the parent is really concerned about his or her children, about their spiritual standing before God, as well as with other people, that parent will
not shirk that responsibility to impose discipline. Wise King Solomon wrote, He who spares the
rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him. Or again, The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to itself disgraces his mother. Parents who refuse to
discipline or who do a poor job of it are really showing a lack of love for their children.
So it should not surprise us that our loving Father in heaven takes steps to discipline us.
He disciplines us for our good and he chastises every son whom he receives. Endure hardship
as discipline. When is God disciplining us? Whenever he allows hardship to come into our
lives. Like a loving parent, our heavenly Father treats us as sons and daughters. Because we
are sinners living in a sinful world there will be hardships. He takes steps so our Christian character is molded, so that we achieve Christian maturity. He may use the sinful world around us,
by allowing us to become victims of violence or persecution. He may use natural disasters, or
bodily illness and disease to remind us what a struggle it is and that we need to cling to him for
relief and for strength. We may wonder why God allows such things to happen to us. And we
can’t always find the exact answers. But as Christians we will persevere, accept the fact that
God does have some higher purpose in mind.
What can we learn from God’s discipline? First and foremost, it is evidence of his love
for us. It may be a painful learning process for us. We may be tempted to turn away from God
because of the pain he allows to come into our lives. But sometimes God wants to say something to us that is so important that he knows we will listen better in a storm of suffering rather
than in the pleasant sunlight. Remember what his purpose is in disciplining us. 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 it. He wants us to share in his holiness. In
those difficult times we should not give up the struggle and turn away from God. Rather those
are the times meant to draw us closer to him. Remember what Paul wrote to the Romans, We
know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him. He is making us better
people, stronger Christians, refining us so that we become purer and purer, like fine gold. He
wants us to be in heaven. He doesn’t want us to get sidetracked by the affairs of this world, to
let secondary matters keep us from running the best race possible. And remember also, that
when he sends these calamities our way, he never gives us one so big that we can’t handle it.
He always will provide just the right amount of strength and perseverance to overcome and
keep running the race. So we should not lose heart. When he tests us, he also toughens us. He
uses these times of discipline to help us focus on what is really important. And that’s our relationship with our Savior, Jesus.
In our society where athletic contests are such a big part of life for so many people, we
will see people and teams overcoming all kinds of obstacles, persevering in the face of overwhelming odds, facing the opposition and carrying the day. We will see and experience many
difficulties in this race we call life, living for our Savior, making our way to heaven, fighting off
the attacks of the sinful world and our sinful nature. We will encounter obstacles that God allows to come into our lives, things he uses to discipline us, to make us stronger and more determined to stay close to him. He wants us always focused on the goal, eternal life with him in
heaven. He wants us to fix our eyes on our Savior, Jesus, who has guaranteed his followers that
they will share in the joys and blessings of heaven. Let us learn from God’s discipline. Let us
throw off everything that would keep us from running in this race. And let us run with determination and perseverance, with the help of our loving Savior and Lord. AMEN.