All Saints Day ... Perseverance & Joy

A Sermon Preach in St. Columba's Knock on Sunday 1st November 2009 at 7pm Choral Evensong. Readings from Isaiah 40 & Hebrews 11/12

Perseverance

With all the advertising, fireworks,trick-or-treaters away, pumpkins all eaten we are here to celebrate All Saints, a day in the churches calendar when we remember all those who have gone before, those whose lives are examples to us on how to live out Christian life, those who have denied themselves and followed the Word of God.

If we were to name Saints we might get be able to rhyme of some names, however we must realise that they were / are normal everyday people who live lives that are devoted to God and his purposes. They are people who had a Normal up-bringing but were called to do some extraordinary things. They probably did not see themselves as anything but normal during their lifetime. They had our weaknesses, they had the same Bible as we have, they knew what we know about church, about Jesus.

We do have in Scripture many examples of people who were able to live out their faith in difficult situations. Hebrews 11, the last part of which we heard this evening lists lots of people who did and experienced extraordinary things for God- Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Moses and then the passing references to the others from the Old Testament.

Chapter 12 begins with the words … THEREFORE, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.

We have these heroes of the faith, these people who have their story told, these people who have lived their lives in the power of God. We need to learn about them, read their story, we need to figure out what they had, what truths we can learn from them. This is where Bible study, prayer and teaching comes in.

The image used here by the writer of the Hebrews is a stadium with all the Heroes of the faith in the audience, they have ran their race but they are spurring us on, they are saying come on helen, keep 'er lit peter – I've got through that … you can do it too. It is an active picture we are called not to be an observer but a runner in the race and as a runner we got to know various things.

Firstly we need to strip off excess stuff – if I was running in a race, chances are I probably wouldn't wear layers and layers of clothing like I a wearing now – I would be down to shorts and a teeshirt

An alternative reading of the first verse of chapter 12 … Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily distracts. We are called to strip of the weight that holds us back, sin distracts us from keeping on going. We do need to identify those things that are slowing us down, those things that we keep doing or saying that distract us from running to our full potential.

Then we need to set our focus on where we are heading. We need to fix our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith. How do we do that if we can't see Him physically? Well what we do need to do is to focus our minds on him – his word, his deeds what he is doing in the world today. He still guides, he is still ahead of us.

There is one word in this passage which seems to be misplaced … take a look at it … who for the Joy set before him endured the cross. He endured the cross for the Joy that was set before him … why would anyone endure the cross for Joy … death for Joy? It doesn't seem right does it. Over the last few weeks I have been thinking quite a bit it my own reading about the Joy … Joy in my own life and ministry, the joy that we are all called as Christians to have.


So often Christians are portrayed by the media and critics as extremely dull,
serious people who cannot have any fun or joy in their life ... Kill-joys maybe. They have to read dull dusty books. We are not stereo-typical people we are called to be the most joyous people. We are called to be people who are following Jesus, yes, we are called to be joyful, we are called to enjoy life. Someone once said

"We are called to be joyfully serious and also seriously joyful."

Our Old Testament reading testifies that things will not always go right, actually things can go terribly wrong sometimes, if you look at the context into which the prophet Isaiah was writing things were going terribly wrong for the israelite nation. Things were terribly wrong. But we can have hope, we can find our joy even in the most difficult of circumstances … why?, how?

Simply by remembering that God is in control. If we look at the the gospel of Luke, we read after the 72 who were sent out to do all kinds of things they come back full of Joy that they were able to see people healed, people set free but Jesus reminds them that their Joy comes not from what they have done but because their names are written in Heaven.

As disciples, as followers of Jesus we are called to be joyful, we are called to root that joy, not in earthly pleasures, not in the latest BMW whose latest adverts tell us Joy is what you make it and then goes on to tell us that Joy is the new BMW X1 …


Well actually NO! BMW's may well be nice cars but actually Christians have JOY … why because our names are written in heaven … that is the root of our Joy. We do not have to settle for man made things which may well bring pleasure for a little while … If we anchor ourselves on the word of God then it is It is possible to find the Joy, the strength which God supplies will be sufficent for us wherever we are and whatever we are doing.


We are In a race, those who have gone before are spurring us on, we need to keep going, we are called to turn to God, to strip off the sin and the other stuff weighing us down and run the race.

It is not a sprint, it is a marathon. But above all, we need to remember the source of Joy, that with Jesus as our Guide, and him directing us, eternity is sorted and we can get on living, daily coming before him in prayer and Bible study as our trainning regime. We can keep going together, yes we will stumble and fall but if we wait upon God he will renew our strength.