8/8/21 Hebrews 11:29-12:2 “Follow Jesus and Live!”

06 Aug 8/8/21 Hebrews 11:29-12:2 “Follow Jesus and Live!”

8/8/21     Hebrews 11:29-12:2        “Follow Jesus and Live!”

It is always an honor and privilege to be able to do this for you folks.  I always feel good when the week finally comes to an end and I can be here in front of folks online or in person to lead worship.  I can still remember back to the first time I ever gave a sermon in about 97 or 98.  One of my dear friends sort of volunteered me to do the sermon.  At that time I had never really spoken in front of people.  Therefore, I was more than a little nervous.  As a matter of fact, I was petrified!  Anyway, I prepared a sermon for that men’s Sunday and I got as ready as I could.  We were attending a church that had 2 services so I had to give this twice.  I remember being really scared.  Then right before I went into the sanctuary, I said a prayer asking Jesus to take this burden.  I then walked into the sanctuary and gave both services without so much as a tinge of nervousness.  I felt great and it all went well.  You see, when it comes to things like this, I have never been very good.  But since that day, I have learned a bit about faith.  It was a day when I learned to trust God in all that I do.  I’m still not perfect in this area but I try to get better every day.  I would not be here today if I didn’t have the faith that God has given me something to say and the ability, His ability to say it.

We hear a lot of things about faith.  We need faith in our leaders.  We need faith that things will be all right.  We need faith for this and faith for that.  Today we are going to take a look at what the author of Hebrews says about faith.  Then we will see if we can throw out all of these different types of faith that we have in this world and see if we can rely on one true faith.  That one faith is in our Lord Jesus Christ and if we have that, then we don’t need anything else.

I would like to begin by talking about heroes.  Who are your heroes?  Often times we look to the so called movie stars and they become our heroes.  It doesn’t matter too much to us if animals have better morals than some of these people.  Sometimes we will decide that our sports players are our heroes.  The same can be said of some of them.  I find it hard to look up to people who make more in one ball game than I make in a whole year.  Others may have been in the armed forces and seen heroes in action.  I am sure that most of these people would tell you that they were only doing what they had been trained to do.

One of my heroes since I have become a Christian has been Billy Graham.  I have about 400 of his sermons and have read books about this great man of God.  And he would also be the first to tell us that he has not done anything except faithfully follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.  And here is where our worldly heroes differ from our spiritual heroes.  Worldly heroes are based here.  They star in make believe movies, hit home runs or save people from physical death.  Spiritual heroes could be doing these same things and some do, but there is always something about them that makes them special and well liked.  I would say from experience that we usually cannot really say what this is.  To many people it is a mystery.  We just know that this person has something special like Billy Graham has had for most of his life.  That something that they have is faith in God.  It is an unshakable, unstoppable faith.  And it is definitely worth looking into for our own lives.

The author, and we don’t know who the author of Hebrews is, started out in chapter 11 by telling his readers of all the famous people in their Jewish history who had faith.  We pick it up today with the parting of the Red Sea, the falling of Jericho and how Rahab was faithful and was not killed.  He goes on to mention some others who he doesn’t have time to get specific about.  He talks of those who were persecuted and mistreated because of their faith.  If you ever want to read about faithful people, read chapter 11 of Hebrews.  It is all right there.  I cannot read this chapter without getting fired up for the Lord.  I would love to have just a portion of their faith.

The reason that the author is going into this subject is because there were many people at the time who were falling away from Jesus.  Many were going back to Judaism.  Some were going back to some other idol worship.  There was a problem and they are being directed back to their roots.  They are also told not to give up because these Jewish heroes did not receive their reward in their lifetime.  This is a hard concept both then and now.

As we go through life it is easy for you to go wrong.  Satan is waiting for you so that he may guide you to bad things.  He is a very powerful adversary.  He will help you to lie, cheat, and worst of all, not follow God.  One of his wrongful ways is for him to tell you that all of these celebrities are heroes.  There are a few who deserve this but I would say that 90% of the people who have this bestowed upon them don’t deserve it.  I would go even farther and say that 90% of the people who should be called heroes are not because of the work of Satan.

Tiger Woods doesn’t deserve to be a hero and neither does Tom Brady.  Our heroes should be coming from our heritage.  All these people listed in chapter 11 should be our heroes.  The disciples should be heroes.  Martin Luther and John Wesley should be heroes.  I think that both of these men would be sickened by how we carry on in our so-called church today.  We also have heroes right here in our midst.  We have people who care for the sick and elderly in the name of Jesus.  We have people giving food to the children on our reservations in the name of Jesus.  We all know people who just live by the word of God who should be heroes.

I would guess that most if not all of these people who live by the word of God would not consider themselves to be heroes.  They would tell us and they do tell us that they are just living the way they were made to live.  We were all meant to live this way.  This is because once we have accepted Jesus into our hearts we become transformed into a new being.  We become empowered.  We become blessed.  This is why I always say that if you don’t know Jesus and have Him living in your heart, then ask Him into your life today.  Don’t wait.  There is a wonderful life waiting for you in Jesus.  He wants to give you all that He has.  So ask Him into your life today.  You will never, ever regret this.

So we are to remember all the saints who have gone before us and the ones who are with us today.  This would kind of be like being in Yankee Stadium when it is packed with all these saints we have been talking about who are cheering for you to cross the finish line.  Thousands and thousands and thousands of spiritual heroes are cheering for you.  There is just one problem.  In our broken human condition, we seemed to get tripped up by sin.

In the ancient times the people got tripped up by their old life style.  Most of these societies that we read about in the Bible were not very civilized by our standards.  They cheated each other, practiced immorality of all kinds and did many other things that were against God’s ways.  This is what the writer is addressing.

Today we have many similar things happening.  I read an article that tells of some of the symptoms of following the ways of the world.  A few of them include a loss of direction in your life, a lack of peace and joy, selfishness, violence, depression, fearfulness.  Other gods enter into our lives.  We are rebellious.  We forget where we came from and foul language comes from our mouths.  These are just a few of the rewards we get for being worldly.  I’m not going to dwell on these today because I think that we all know these and can fit ourselves into at least one of these areas.  We live in a foul world!

Instead, I would like to focus on how you can throw these and other bad things out of your lives.  You are all given the fruits of the Spirit as we find in the 5^th chapter of Galatians.  You are given love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  You can have each and every one of these if you choose.  I always had a good time when we study these fruits in confirmation.  If you think about it, this list of fruits is overwhelming.  So, what I tell the students and you is to take one of the fruits that you lack the most, pray about it and try to use it a lot in the next couple of weeks or so.  Then move onto another one of the fruits and do the same.  You’ll be surprised that you are able to have some of these things in your life.

Just think how great your life can be if you just fill it with love for everyone.  You will be able to throw off the gossip that you spread and the hate you have for a neighbor.  The reason that so many people are miserable is that they cannot love.  You were not made to live like this.  You were made to love.  When you start to live according to how you are made, you will see great things happen in your life.

The same goes for joy.  If all you ever do is look at the negative side of things you can have no joy in your life and your life once again becomes miserable.  It is not only miserable for you but it is miserable for people who are around you.  Be joyful.  Look at all the blessings that you have in life.  Look around you at all these friends that you have.  You have a lot to be joyful about so let’s be joyous!

You were also built for peace.  When was the last time that you worried about something and it made any difference?  I hate to tell you this but Satan is causing you to worry because we all know that worrying does no good at all.  So work on this and try not to worry.  I know that some people just worry and worry and worry.  What I say to you is go to God and ask for help to break out of this so that you can have God’s peace that you were made to have.

One of the fruits that the kids always tell me that they have problems with is patience.  Let’s face it, we are an instant society and if we have to wait for 5 minutes, then we are all upset.  Do you see where all this is leading?  You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that all these fruits from God will give you a better life.  And don’t think that I am any better than you because I know that I lack patience and other fruits often.  Bring it to God and ask for help.

Kindness is one area where we probably all think that we do pretty well and you may be right.  Maybe all of you do go and visit people in the hospital.  Maybe all of you help others out with food when they are in a crisis mode.  Maybe all of you are the first to help someone out when something breaks or someone dies.  Or maybe you all need a little work here.

Goodness may be another area where you all think you are ok.  But I think that if you really look into your lives, you will see that you need some work here also.  Faithfulness is what we looked at earlier when we looked at our history.  Do you have the faith to walk through the Red Sea as it is parted?  Do you have the faith of David to face the giant?  Do you have the faith to trust Jesus Christ for your every need?

The last 2 fruits of gentleness and self-control probably also need a little work.  But do you know what?  All of this is ok.  It is ok that you need a little work in these areas.  The reason I can say this is that you have Jesus on your side and not Satan.  Jesus wants you to have all of these fruits and He will help you if you ask.  This is how you throw off the things of this world.  This is how you turn your lives around.  You start to study Jesus and soon you will be living the best life that is possible.  Oh, sure, you will still have problems.  But these problems are not nearly as big when you have Jesus.  So today I am asking you to start a regimen of praying about the fruits that we have just mentioned and are in Galatians 5:22-23.  If you do this one little thing you will find rewards that you never dreamed possible.  This is what is so great about following Jesus.  You feel so good when you do.

We were all put here for a purpose.  Individually, you all have a purpose from God.  In order to achieve this purpose, you have to fix our eyes on Jesus.  There is a song that says, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus.”  This might be where they got it from.  Anyway, look to Jesus for everything that you do.  There is nothing that you do that should not be brought to Jesus whether it is big or small.  Jesus loves you so much that He will do all these things for you if you just ask and follow.  He loves you so much that He wants to give you all that He has.  He has everything and He wants to give you everything.

And it all depends on you.  When I was young I had the chance to run in track against Henry Bouche, the future famous NHL hockey player from Warroad, MN.  It was in the district track meet and I actually beat him by a fraction of a step in the 100 yard dash.  We didn’t do meters in those days.  Anyway I was pretty thrilled.  But what would have happened if I had 10 lb. ankle weights on each ankle?  I would have finished last instead of 4^th or 5^th or 6^th or where ever I finished.

So, my question to you today is this.  Do you have weights on your legs that keep you from following Jesus?  Today I have given you a few suggestions as to how to take these weights off and live a life of total, total freedom.  Jesus loves every person here so much that He took me from a nice life in a worldly sense and put me here to tell you this great news.  And I don’t regret following Jesus to this area for one second.  You won’t either no matter where He takes you.  Follow Jesus and live.  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.