Standing Firm: A call for Endurance (1)
Every Christian needs to exercise their faith.
Hebrews 11:1
11-4-07
Introduction:
Illustration: (Family reunion canoe trip)
Every year for almost 30 years I have gone to a family reunion at a resort called, Fin and Feather, in Oklahoma. One of my favorite things has always been the annual canoe trip. About 30-40 of us will go rent canoes and go down river for about 6 miles. Surprisingly at a young age I found that if you hold the paddle just right when you pass other canoes you can spray them with water. It makes squirt guns and super soakers look pathetic. My family quickly realized to stay far away from the canoe I was in. So I would have to sometimes turn my canoe around and paddle upstream against the current to find my next victim. I found that it was much easier to float downstream then it is to paddle upstream. When going with the current I did not even have to paddle except to avoid hiding a rock or the shore every once in a while. It was easy and required very little effort. However, when going upstream I had to work hard, paddle fiercely, and I could not give up or I would not get to where I was trying to go.
The title today is Standing Firm: A Call For Endurance. If the world is a raging river and everything is flowing in one direction then the Christian walk is the one thing that opposes this current. It not only stand firm and is not pulled downstream but in fact it continues to move upstream battling the current, battling this world and all that it contains.
Jesus said in John 15:19
If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
Today I am advocating that as Christians we need to stand firm and endure. We do this by obtaining and exercising real faith.
2 Timothy 4:7
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.
My hearts cry is to boldly be able to always make that statement about my walk with God.
2 Timothy 4:10 Demas deserts the faith and Paul
Demas, having loved this present world has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.
What is the difference between Paul and Demas? How is it that both these men served together but that Paul is able to say, "I've kept the faith", while Demas has deserted the faith?
Paul endured, he persevered through the hard times, and he put feet to his faith so it grew strong.
Demas was unable to persevere because like the parable of the soils he was not planted in the good soil, possibly he was in the rocky soil where he had not developed any spiritual depth
How can we as Christians boldly say that we have fought the good fight, how can we say we have finished the course and we have kept the faith?
Definition of Endurance: to persevere, persist, to hang in there, to be faith driven
Overview of Hebrews
3 recipients:
1. Hebrew Christians
2. Hebrew non-Christians but are intellectually convinced of the truth
3. Hebrew non-Christians
What happens when we do not endure?
We become drifters
2:1
We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.
What happens when we do not endure?
We become drifters
We become immature
5:11-14
11 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn.
12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!
13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.
14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
John 14:21 “Whoever has My commands and obeys, he is the one who loves Me…”
What happens when we do not endure?
We become drifters
We become immature
We become weak
12:12
12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.
(When you focus on the pain and not Christ we become weak we are unable to stand firm)
The first thing to go when running is your arms and then your legs.
What happens when we do not endure?
We become drifters
We become immature
We become weak
We become proximal
10:32-34 (Intellectually convinced but still unsaved)
32 Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering.
33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated.
34 You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.
35 So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.
Illustration:
I want to be like William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison editor of the abolitionist paper, The Liberator, once sold his bed and slept on the floor to buy more newsprint to publish his attacks on slavery. His epitaph cites the courage of honest conviction: “I am in earnest…I will not retreat a single step, and I will be heard.”
“I have fought the good fight…”
His convictions led him to action
Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Faith is living in a hope that is so real it gives absolute assurance
· Are you living in that hope?
· Do you have absolute assurance of where you will be spending eternity?
· True faith, Real faith gives absolute assurance.
Conviction is living a life based upon what your mind and spirit is convinced is true.
· This is where your faith becomes action.
· You cannot have assurance and not have convictions!!!
We are going to do an overview of Hebrews 11 and the word faith is used 25 times in this chapter alone. Obviously God is trying to tell us today something about our faith. I believe today we will clearly see that in order to persevere as a believer you must have true faith. A faith that is not separated from actions but rather is intertwined with actions.
James said that faith without works is dead
When we do endure
We become active Christ followers
Enoch (11:5)
5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; and he was not found because God took him up; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God.
When we do endure
We become active Christ followers
We become tools for God
Noah (11:7)
7 By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.
If Noah had told God, “you know God, I know that you are holy and just and that you want the best for your people but I just don’t think I am going to build you this boat “Would we be reading about him in Hebrews 11:7??
Application:
What is it your life that God is asking you to do?
o Quit a Job
o Start something new
o What unfamiliar ground is God leading you to?
When we do endure
We become active Christ followers
We become tools for God
We become joyful
Moses (11:24-27)
24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter,
25 choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin,
26 considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward.
27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.
Application:
· What things are you allowing in your life to rob you of your joy in Christ?
Others not mentioned (Shadrach, Meshach, Abendego)
When we do endure
We become active Christ followers
We become tools for God
We become joyful
We become martyrs
(11:37-38)
37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated
38 (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.
Application:
o We choose life over death
o We choose to boldly stand in the midst of the raging waters of the water and stand firm, we persevere in our faith in Christ Jesus.
· Noah was on totally unfamiliar ground building a boat on dry ground preparing for a rain that would flood the entire earth.
· Moses chose a pain over luxuries, he chose a desert over the throne room.
· Others chose death over life. That is how important Christ is to them
The fruit/works of these men point toward their great faith which points towards Christ at the center of their lives.
Conclusion:
Illustration:
During World War II, the Royal Air Force psychologists observed that pilots made the most errors as they flew their planes in for a landing on returning to their base from hazardous raids. The cause, said the analysts, was an “almost irresistible tendency to relax.”
Our Christians lives cannot be or remain in a relaxed Christian State. We must fight, we must endure, we must persevere, toward godliness and all the more as the day of our Lord is approaching.
There are two ways for us to move along this river
1. We can coast down the river, drifting wherever the current may take us eventually ending up in destruction
OR
2. Battle upstream, claiming our salvation, pressing on toward maturity, knowledge, faith, hope, and holiness.
If your desire is to cry out as the apostle Paul did, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith, then we must endure, we must stand firm against the current of the world and put our faith into action.
Close in prayer
Eph 6:10-18