Stay the Course—Keep the Faith!

As one who has a 404 cell number, I'm obviously vintage, which is another way of saying old.

I want to add my own welcome to that, which Dee shared with you, particularly those of

you who are joining us online.

It's good to know that I live and worship amongst the people who also don't have a beach

house or a lake house or a mountain house that you have escaped to this weekend.

We are grateful to gather to worship God together.

Would you join me in prayer?

Jesus, we are lost without you.

We say that, we sing that, but it is our truth.

And as such, we are desperate.

For you, Holy Spirit, ruach, pneuma, to fill us with the breath of God, that we may live

the lives to which you have called us, which we cannot live without your empowerment.

Shape us in these moments together and prepare us to live lives to glorify you.

Amen.

In Jesus' name we pray.

And everybody said, amen.

Just so we're all on the same page, make sure that we're all speaking the same language.

I want to remind everyone what we have been doing this year, what we are doing this year.

We're in this series we're calling Overflow, looking at our lives as something through

which God's work, our lives can reach a point that they overflow with the grace and the

mercy and the love of God.

And you see from whence we have come, the last eight months, today is September the

1st, remember?

We have tackled, if you start with February, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 classical

practices or disciplines of the Christian life that followers of Jesus have used through

the centuries to grow ever closer to God.

Eight months down, three to go, 11 practices.

Eight months down, one, two, three, four.

You may be looking at this and thinking, oh, you're kidding me.

Can we not call it a day?

I mean, gee, wellikers.

And I've had conversations over the last several months with folks who have expressed appreciation,

excuse me, for the Overflow series, but have begun in the last several weeks to suggest

that maybe it's feeling less.

Less like overflow and more like overwhelmed.

Am I supposed to do every one of these every day and just keep plugging along?

How can I do it?

How can I keep going?

How can I stay the course?

How can I keep the faith?

Which brings me to story time.

Every year.

Sometime in the mid to late fall, I go out with a group of guys on the Appalachian Trail

for about a week.

And we're going out the, there's one of the guys right there, we're going out the last

week of September this year.

This story took place in 2017.

Dutch, you were not with us on this particular trip.

And we were going out and the first day was a particularly, really difficult day.

I mean, just, I don't know if you know this or not, but the Appalachian Trail is not paved

and it is not level.

And we're out with packs that range anywhere from 33 to 40 pounds and we're going climbing

these mountains and going down and the first day was so difficult that we were not able

to get to the point where we thought we would spend the night the first night.

We stopped short.

We just kind of crashed, found a spot.

Set up tents, slept that night, got up the next morning, an obsessive compulsive type

A person that I am, I'm thinking, okay, guys, look, we've got to do all the mileage today

that we had planned to do plus the miles that we didn't do on Saturday.

So we've got to get after it.

So we get up and we're hustling.

I mean, we are doing the best that we can.

We kind of spread out along the trail, there were five of us, and a guy that we call Pippin

was up.

He was up with me.

We were in the front and everybody was asking me after the last two services.

So Chuck, what's your, what's your Appalachian Trail name?

And it's really creative folks, are you ready for this?

Preacher.

So Pippin and I are up there and about one o'clock, the other guys haven't caught up

to us and we reach this shelter and we stop and we're eating lunch and there's a man and

a woman there.

We find out that it's brother and sister.

They're out for a day hike, just hiking for the day.

And we're explaining that, you know, one of our guides apparently last night and this

morning was saying his knee was really giving him troubles.

And so, you know, we don't know what's going on with him and they give us one of their

phone numbers.

I think it was the lady's phone number said, we've got a car.

You know, if, if you need help, call us, we'll do what we can.

We thanked them.

We talked a little bit.

They, they moved on.

We decide Pippin and I double back and bump into one of them.

One of the guys, we call him Gadget and he's looking at us like, what are you doing?

You're going the wrong direction.

And we explained that, you know, look, y'all hadn't caught up to us, wonder what's going

on.

So we chat for a minute.

We go on back and we find Sawmill who got his name by virtue of the way he sleeps.

And Splash, which is a long story.

And Sawmill is walking kind of like this.

Up and down hills and mountains with a heavy pack on his back.

We talk among the five of us.

We decide that we're going to take the brother and sister up on their offer.

Pippin calls and we're looking at the guy and we're trying to figure out, we arrange

a spot to meet him where the trail crosses a dirt road and game on.

So we're headed back out that way.

And we decide that.

Okay.

Make sure they don't get there and we're not there.

And they think, oh, they must've changed their minds and they leave us.

Pippin and Splash and I are going to move as quickly as we can and get to this place

and meet them and Gadget and Gimpy Sawmill will come along behind.

So we are busting it as much as a bunch of middle-aged old men with packs on their backs

can bust it.

In the heat of North Carolina mountains.

And we get to one point and they said, look, let's take five minutes.

So we sit down on this downed tree and Pippin's here and I'm here and Splash is here.

And I pull out the guide and I'm looking at it and I'm trying to figure out where we are

and where the road is.

And I said, all right, it looks like we've got about another mile and a half before we

get to the road.

And Splash says, he's still gasping.

He says, I don't think I can walk another mile and a half.

And I just blurt out, well, you have to.

He did.

And he just looks at me in shock and, you know, after a couple of minutes, we pull it

together and we get to that spot and we wait there.

And finally the brother and sister come in with a car.

And the other two guys come in and all worked out.

Sawmill ended up having to come back to Atlanta and see a doc about his knee and we went on

with the trip.

But those three little words, you have to, had become a part of the language of this

group of guys whenever we're out on the trail.

At some point during every week that we're out there, sooner or later, somebody says,

they don't want to do something and somebody else will look at them and say, well, you have

to.

And that's just kind of become part of who we are.

And as I think about where you and I are in this series of overflow, and if you're feeling

more overwhelmed than overflowing, let me simply say with all pastoral sensitivity,

if you're thinking you can't keep going.

Well, you have to.

So it's not just you and me that wrestle with this.

It was the followers of Jesus in the first century as well.

Peter, one of the three people who were in Jesus' inner circle, wrote two letters to

the followers of Jesus, not a particular church, but kind of a general letter that he was using

to communicate to anyone.

And this is what he says in the beginning of the second letter, Simon Peter, a servant

and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior

Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours.

Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge

of Him.

He is the one who called us by His own glory and goodness.

Through these He's given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them,

that is through those promises, you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption

in the world caused by evil desires, sounds like today.

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness.

To goodness, knowledge.

To knowledge, self-control.

To self-control, you have to.

Perseverance.

And to you have to, or perseverance, godliness, and to godliness, mutual affection, and to

mutual affection, love.

For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective

and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Peter was writing to people.

And Peter's like, no matter what buckled you or has been spending too much time evolved

frantically into a prescription but he's definitely not out of the picture.

His vision, and new vision.

He said when I was a kid what most of the Bible said in all the scriptures was think

of the devil, and make the church your own very own church.

In case of anything else you and you don't want to do, then there it is it happens.

But our faith has a family chapter.

And we all embrace it.

As a pastor.

And a pastor of the church would say, life is like this.

Take all your responsibilities.

Many good確 sansles.

to figure out how to get along with one another because they are finding that they are in the

midst of this community, this larger Roman empire that is looking down on them and in many ways

is persecuting them for their faith in Jesus. And realize too that in that day and age,

in that culture, if you began to follow Jesus, particularly if you'd come out of a Jewish

background, you were ostracized by your family. They would say, you're dead to me.

And they would have nothing to do with you. And they're living in a culture in which they're

wondering if it's worth staying the course, keeping the faith. Can they, do they, will they

continue to follow Jesus in their daily life? And Peter in effect says, well, you know what?

You have to. Which leads me to the question that Rich posed in his sermon last week.

Do you want to be coached or indulged? Do you want us to stand up here on Sunday morning and

just say whatever we think you want to hear that will make you feel good? Or do you want us to

do some of the hard work? How many, just out of curiosity, this is one of those times when in a

Presbyterian church, you're actually encouraging people to do some of the hard work. And you're

encouraged to raise your hand in worship. How many of you attended or watched on television

yesterday, a football game? Ah, you are among the chosen. If you were at a game or if you watched

the game, you at some point saw a coach get in a player's grill and tell him what he was doing

wrong or what he needed to do right. And sometimes you see coaches come along,

players, and put their arm around their shoulder and motivate them and encourage them to keep on

doing what they need to do. It's not always easy. Living the Christian life in this day and age

is not a simple thing. People around us don't understand us. They don't like us. And sometimes

they make fun of us. It's hard. You remember last week when Rich told the story of our

Ernest Shackleton launching the expedition to try and cross Antarctica in the boat? Remember the

boat got frozen in the water. They had to go over land. It's an incredible story. Get the book

Endurance. It's amazing. This is the ad that Shackleton put in the newspapers to recruit

people for the trip. Men wanted for hazardous journeys, small wages, bitter cold, long months

of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return.

Learn doubtful. Honor and recognition in event of success.

Any takers? At 8.30, one guy said, his wife looked at him. I don't know what was going on there.

But I almost feel like we need an ad, something like that, for followers of Jesus.

Followers wanting.

For a difficult life. Potential ridicule. Long faithfulness. But it's worth it in the end.

Peter used the word perseverance. Now, I don't know what you understand about perseverance or

what that word brings up in your mind, but the Greek word that is translated perseverance,

sometimes it's translated,

endurance, is not a passive word. Because endure or persevere kind of sounds like,

I'm just going to get through this. But in classical Greek before the New Testament Greek,

and you put the two of them together, it means active resistance against the forces around you

that seek to prevent you from accomplishing your goal. In other words, you have to.

Just keep on keeping on. Keep the faith. Stay the course.

The best passage from the Old Testament that attests to this comes from Isaiah 40.

And I thought that I could read that part of that chapter here this morning.

And then it occurred to me, since we are so close to the Paris Olympics, which have just concluded,

the Paralympics are going on right now, I thought maybe we would let a voice from the Paris Olympics

read this passage.

But it's the Paris Olympics of 1924, not 2024. So listen to Eric Little from 1924.

My text this afternoon is taken from Isaiah, chapter 40.

Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard?

That the everlasting God, the Lord,

the creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary.

He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no strength,

he increaseth might.

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

They shall mount up with winds as eagles.

They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.

Sometimes that's what the Christian faith feels like.

It feels like we're falling down, that we're stumbling, that we're doing the best we can.

We're absolutely exhausted, and it's hard to keep going.

But did you hear that passage?

Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

Not those who do it on their own power.

Not those who just summon up grit and keep going.

But those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

Shall mount up with wings like eagles.

They shall run and not be weary.

They shall walk and not faint.

What's the source of your power today?

Is it yourself?

Or do you draw on a source of strength and power that has been given to you by God?

Remember what Peter said in the very first verse of that letter.

He says,

Remember that Peter was one of the three men in the inner circle with Jesus.

He had an incredibly close relationship.

And he says that those followers in the first century can have a faith as close and as very close to God as they can.

As close and as valuable and as precious as the faith that Peter had.

And you can too.

If you wait upon the Lord.

If you let Holy Spirit work in your life and enable you to persevere.

This past Tuesday, my wife, Lib, and I celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary.

And any time we do that, sooner or later,

a story is told of what happened at the end of our wedding reception.

Ours was a noon wedding.

First United Methodist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

That was Lib's home church.

We walked, you know, we were pronounced husband and wife.

Walked down the center aisle.

Got into a limo that shot us straight over to the country club for the reception.

At some point in the reception, somebody walks up, taps us on the shoulder,

says, time for y'all to leave.

So we go upstairs in the country club.

Chuck and the groomsmen, we go upstairs.

The groomsmen go in this room to change clothes.

Lib and the bridesmaids went in that room to change clothes.

It takes a guy about 30 seconds to change clothes.

I change clothes, come out, groomsmen all go downstairs.

Lib was in there with the bridesmaids for three and a half weeks.

And I'm, the whole time, I'm standing outside that room

with her father.

Who has his hands in his pockets.

And he's just looking at me.

So I...

Finally, I don't know what else to do.

So I look at him and I say,

I'll take good care of her, sir.

And I know Ken said something.

I don't know what it was.

We've never discussed it.

But for 41 years, I've always said to Lib,

I promised your dad I'd take care of you.

Now, those of you who've been married for a few years

know that's not always easy.

I mean...

We get sideways with each other in marriage.

For 41 years, we've been happily married about 40 years.

There's a day here and a day there, you know?

Sometimes you're just dead gum tired.

And it's like, I don't want to do this.

I just...

I want somebody to take care of me.

But it's a choice I make every day.

And Tuesday evening, we've been out to dinner.

We're headed home.

She said something really nice.

And I said, look, I promised your dad I'd take care of you.

And I do that for two reasons.

One, I gave him my word.

And two, I really enjoy doing it.

But it's a choice I make every day,

sometimes multiple times a day.

And that's what you've got to do the same way

in living your life in relationship to the risen Christ.

It's a choice you make every day.

To stay the course, to keep the faith, to persevere,

to you have to, to keep going on.

You may be a mom who is absolutely exhausted

from caring for children, family, house, work,

and you don't know how you can keep going.

Maybe you're in sales

and you've had the door closed in your face so many times.

You've heard no so many times.

It's up to here.

You don't know if you can keep going.

Maybe you're in school.

And you're trying to live your life as a follower of Jesus.

And the people around you are making fun of you.

And you just don't know if you can keep it going.

This, you know, maybe you're in school

and this was going to be your year.

You were going to make your mark on the playing field

and you got cut from the team.

Or maybe you're a young girl

who's trying to catch the eye of that guy

and he just looks quite beyond you.

And you just don't know if you can keep going.

Maybe.

You're at that point in life

where everything is going against you.

Relationally, your family, professionally,

you don't know what you can do.

Or maybe you're at a point

where there has been tragedy in your life

and you just don't even know if you can get out of bed,

much less live as a follower of Jesus.

You just don't know what you're going to do.

Ladies,

ladies,

you who have given birth to children,

labor wasn't easy, was it?

But remember what came at the end of that labor.

Incredible, exquisite joy.

You have to stay the course,

keep the faith,

persevere.

The key is we persevere by the power of Jesus Christ,

not ourselves.

a power which we find every time we come to this table.

Let us pray.

Holy and loving God, by your grace and mercy,

may your Spirit impress upon our hearts and minds and souls

that you have given us the power and the ability

to persevere, to live in relationship with you

and to glorify your name through our lives.

Breathe Holy Spirit into us and help us to do that, we pray.

In Jesus' name, amen.