Striving with Confidence

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God, our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Yesterday, you all know was Saturday. And Saturday is my favorite day of the week because it's college football. Now, I have to adjust what I watch for the important business of conducting church service, but by and large, I can watch most of the games I want to watch. And this week was a big week for two teams.

Last week, ranked number 1, Alabama loss to unranked, Texas A&M. And the commentators, yesterday morning were speaking about would Alabama come back from that, tremendous loss the week before to an unranked team.

The other big game last week was Iowa and Penn State. And both undefeated, and Iowa pulled it off. They beat Penn State. But the question was now, will they be able to come back and sustain and win against Purdue? And I think Purdue had a bye the week before, so they were all rested up.

And by the way, because they beat Penn State, Iowa was ranked number two. And if you watched the games, you know that Iowa could not sustain and they lost, they lost to unranked Purdue. I'm guessing that Iowa is going to drop a lot further then Alabama or George or any other upper tier team in the rankings. And Alabama did come back, and they kinda trounced all over their opponent, Mississippi State.

So you might say, well, Pastor, that's great. But what does that really have to do with our faith? Well, it has a great deal to do with faith. Because this morning, we had the opportunity, if you will, to witness faith created in two young men of our congregation by the power of the Holy Spirit, connected with the word and God's water. I mean, excuse me, the water and God's word. And the question really is: will they be able to sustain that faith to enter into God's Sabbath rest? Or won't they?

Now, of course, our prayer is that they would be able to sustain that faith. And God provides wonderful blessings and gifts to sustain that faith. First and foremost, He puts those young man in Godly families. He makes them a part of a congregation who cares for them. Godly sponsors who will see to it that they are brought up in the Christian faith, especially if they should lose their parents. And with all that, they can strive, as you and I do, to enter into that Sabbath rest that the writer of the letter to the Hebrews is encouraging us to enter into.

Last week, we learned that importance of spiritual faith and life. We have to look to our own spiritual life and faith first. But then, that means also that if I am spiritually well, then I need to look to my neighbor, my brother and sister. Are they spiritually well? How's their faith and life? Or maybe they're wandering and I need to bring them back. And so sometimes - like Jonah in the Bible class - God gives us a message for our brother and sister that we really don't want to give. Hey. You know, you're drifting away. Slowly, but surely. You haven't been the same. Or - I was always afraid I'd get called on this. You know when the Book World was still on that block downtown? When I came, I had a big black Dodge van, and everybody knew the Dodge van. Well, there was no place to park on Grand Avenue, so I had to park on that side street. And of course, there was a gentlemen's club, you know. Maybe it's still there, I don't know. And I'm always like, somebody's going to come up to me and say Pastor, we saw you parked in front of a gentlemen's club.

Now, maybe we have to say that to our neighbor. Seriously. And we know there's going to be some pushback, but if we really take our - or maybe we're the one that our friend has to come and talk to, and maybe we want to push back. But if we're really serious about our spiritual health and life and faith, we'll allow that brother or sister to admonish us, and we'll receive that admonishment. Because, as that author says: Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. That disobedience that leads to sin. That disobedience that leads to sin. And sin unchecked can lead to faith decay. Faith decay.

How many of you are familiar with the series Hoarders? Hoarders. Okay, if you're not familiar with Hoarders, horders are pack rats to the extreme. How many of you are pack rats? Not all pack rats are hoarders. But all hoarders are pack rats, I would think. But, anyway, in this series, these people, they hoard so much that there's not even pathways through rooms. I mean, any possible place you could stuff, some stuff is stuffed with stuff.

And this morning, the Holy Spirit took up residence in two new lives just as He's taken up residence in our lives. But if I start piling up sin and stuffing that away in my life, and boy, that sin is really good. It really satisfies me. Pretty soon, there's not going to be any room for the Holy Spirit there, and He's just going to take off. And when the Holy Spirit leaves, then faith goes with it. Then faith goes with it. And then we're cast out. Not going to enter into that Promised Land, enter into that Sabbath rest.

And how disappointing that will be for a lot of people who think they're going to enter into that rest, but they're so happy with sin and storing up sin, that they've forgotten about their faith. Forgotten about that great work that God began in them in baptism. And they'll be standing out there in the darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, as we'll hear in a couple of weeks for a couple of weeks. And they thought all along that they were going to get in. But they won't. And so let us strive, therefore, to enter into that rest, that Sabbath rest of God.

Our young people were asked if there was something that they ever had to strive to do that was really, really difficult and hard. My thing takes me to physical education. Much more difficult than math, even though I'm not too crazy about math. But when I was in grade school, junior high, maybe even into high school, but I'm pretty sure it ended in junior high, there was this award you could get, and it was called the Presidential Physical Fitness, Award. I'm not going to ask how many of you have it, cuz I don't want to go down that road. But in order to do that, or to receive that award, you had to accomplish a whole bunch of things. Like, I think you had to do so many sit-ups and so many push-ups and then you do some chin-ups and you had to climb that rope, you know, that rope that it's never down until it's time for Physical Fitness Award time. Because otherwise, you don't use it. I wonder how much one of those ropes cost and if it was really a worthwhile expense? I don't know. Anyway, I digress. But President Kennedy established this to keep American children physically fit. Well, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're not physically fit if you just don't have the upper arm strength to do those things, because some of us, we just don't have that upper arm strength, and I was one of those. And I probably still don't have it. And so I could handle the sit-ups and push-ups, but when it came to those was chin-ups, well, I could probably pull it off if I could cheat, you know, where you hold it this way (fingers toward you), but no, there was a phy-ed teacher right there. No, turn your hands the other way. Well, you don't get as much leverage this way. And then that rope. It was like that commercial for The Wonder Years that just came out. Where they're in the gym and the physical education teacher says to the boy, "See that rope? I want you to go up to the top of it and come back down. Go." And the boy's just looking up at that rope. I bet that would be about as high as the ceiling here, almost. Maybe not quite. But anyway, I just couldn't do it. And I resigned myself to the fact that I'm never going to get that Physical Fitness Award. And I was okay with that. But, you know, in the hymn, we sang let us not resign to weak resignation over our sin. I could have just said, you know, I think I'll be sick that day when they do that.

But I'd go and it's like, okay. Well, you know, I'm not going to meet the requirement to get the award, but I should still at least strive to see maybe I can get a few more inches up that rope than the year before. Or maybe I can get another chin up more than the year before. And I can see that, okay, I made some progress. Great. The other thing that was difficult is I had to run the mile. I forget what grade that was. I think was about 10 or 12 circuits around the outdoor track. And I'm like oh, that's an awful lot of. And the teacher's like pace yourself, just pace yourself. But you do want to get it under so many minutes. Oh, well, no pressure there. But I figured, okay, all I want to do is I want to cross the finish line. I don't want to pull a cramp in my leg that I have to get off and I'm out of the race, so to speak. Cuz if you didn't cross the finish line, well then you just have to run it another time. You had to run it. It was, now I don't know if it was true or not, but I think the phy ed teacher said it was a state requirement for phy ed in that grade, you had to be able to do this, so you couldn't get out of it. So all I did was strive to run around that track, not thinking about how many times I've been around it, but knowing that when I crossed the finish line, the teacher would say "Okay, you're finished." Until he said that to us, we had to keep running.

My goal was just to finish the race. Which I did. I was somewhere in the middle pack. And we all here today, we want to strive to just finish the race, don't we? Of faith. But there's all sorts of things that the devil and the world and our own flesh are going to throw at us to keep us from running that race. And it can be challenging. But we don't run that race alone. We're all in it together. And today, two more people joined that race with us.

Jesus told the disciples: children, how difficult it is to enter into the kingdom of God. It's not just for wealthy people that it's difficult, although that man was wealthy. It's difficult for everybody to enter into that Sabbath rest into the kingdom of God, because we are all sinners. And there is nothing that any one of us can do that can get us into that rest. You know, Peter begins to say, well Lord, we gave up, you know, everything to follow You. And Jesus sort of cuts him off. And it's like, well, yeah, Peter. But, you know, sure you'll get again that much but with persecution. But with persecution, The point is, Peter, you don't get in on your own. You don't get into the kingdom of heaven or enter into that Sabbath rest on your own. I continue on with the epistle reading verses 14 through the end of the chapter.

Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.

That is wherein we can strive with confidence. We have a High Priest who sympathizes with us.

We often times use the word sympathize - I sympathize with you - when someone is grieving a loss, or they're having a frustration. And we use the word sympathize when really, the word we wanted use is empathize. Empathize is simply: I see you're going through a rough time, and I'm here to encourage you. You can call upon me. That's empathize.

Sympathize means you've been through the exact same thing. Now, that's not to say that you're going to be, have experienced the same thing in the same way as somebody else. But who really understands the death of a spouse than somebody who lost a spouse? Who understands what it's like to go through a divorce than somebody who's been through a divorce? Who knows what it's like to try and love a child who's hard to love than somebody who's had a child who's been hard to love, and they've loved them.

And so our Jesus, our High Priest, He can sympathize with us. He knows what it's like to be tempted. And you might be sitting there saying well, but Pastor, He hasn't endured the temptation I've had to face. Oh, yes, He has. Well, I bet He didn't get tempted by going to that online gambling site. Oh, yes, He has. I bet He hasn't been tempted with pornography the way I have. Oh yes, He has.

If you comb through your heart and your soul and your mind, and you come across that temptation or that sin that you keep to yourself and God - you don't tell your spouse, you won't tell anyone till your dying day, except maybe the pastor, if it's really, really bothering you. And you really wonder how could God forgive that? Jesus has experienced that same temptation.

But the good news is He withstood that temptation. Was without sin. But He knows what it's like for you and I to be tempted.

And if we are in that moment, in that temptation, in that pathway headed towards sin, if we're going down that road that's going to lead us not to enter into that Sabbath rest, then we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. So let us hold fast our confession. We just confessed our faith in Jesus Christ. God, the Father, the Creator of all things and the Holy Spirit in the Apostles Creed. For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted, as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace. Here's when that rubber hits the road, so to speak, when we are in that situation, then go with confidence to the throne of grace, because there indeed, we find mercy and grace to help us in our time of need, to bring us through that temptation, to turn around from that poor choice. Or if the choice has been poorly made already, to realize that God forgive me in my sin, and help me by the power of Your Holy Spirit to amend my sinful life. And then continue on striving to enter into that eternal rest.

Jesus says, it's difficult to enter into the kingdom of God. And the disciples say well then, Lord, who can be saved? Who can be saved? And what's Jesus' answer? He doesn't say well, for you poor souls that are sinners, none of you can be saved. No. He says, what's impossible for man is possible with God, because all things are possible. Things looked pretty bleak and dismal for Adam and Eve after they disobeyed God, but God said I'm going to send a Savior. And He's going to redeem you and all your descendants. He's going to endure temptation. He is going to be without sin. He is going to suffer that punishment that my law demands because of your disobedience. And He's going to do that all for you.

You see the Lord Jesus does all the chin ups. He does make it to the top, and then some, of that rope. For me, for you, for Harvey, for Levi, for all of us. The question then is, not just for Harvey and Levi or their families, but for all of us here. Here in person or online. Yes, I haven't forgot. Some of you are out there live online. Will we persist and strive on and finish the race? Or will we give up to resignation and not show up? Or find that what we thought we were going to be entering into is no barred to us?

We all want to strive to enter that rest. And the thing is, it isn't a whole lot unlike me running that mile. We just day-by-day run that race - and we'll hear more about that next week or the week after - but we run that race, and when we cross the finish line, we'll know. Yesterday, we had a beautiful celebration of Pauline Romanski's life. She crossed the finish line. Jesus said "Pauline, you're finished!" And guess what? As we say in the collect for a funeral service, now she's resting from her labors. She's entered into that Sabbath rest.

And all those who've already entered are waiting for that day when Jesus comes, so that even the faithful who are still alive when He comes can answer once and for all into that eternal rest.

So, if there's any doubt, approach that throne of grace with confidence, that you may find mercy and find grace to help in your time of need. And He will answer. He will provide. He's begun a good work in you, just as today, He began that good work in Levi and Harvey. He's begun that good work in each one of us. And he has promised to bring that into completion. Not you and I bring it to completion, but He will bring it to completion in the day of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

And now may that peace of God, which surpasses our understanding, keep our hearts, and our minds in faith in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.