Sermon Series Living Strong: Week Four

The Rev. Dr. Dawn Chesser

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C

August 28, 2016

The name “Livestrong” was coined by cyclist Lance Armstrong as the name of his foundation to fund research efforts for cancer survivors. Over time, as it is with many things, the Livestrong Foundation has gone through a number of changes, including distancing itself from its origins, but it continues its work of assisting and encouraging people who have fought and won a battle with cancer.

I have been inspired by the Tour de France, which is going on at the time I am writing these notes, and which will still be pretty fresh by the time you read them. As such, I thought “Livestrong” was a great idea for a sermon series, not just as a word, but as a concept, as we consider key excerpts from the book of Hebrews over these four weeks. I have adapted it slightly, so as to not get anyone in trouble for copyright infringement, by altering the tense of the verb and calling the series “Living Strong.”

Text: Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

This is the fourth and final week of our series on “Living Strong.” What a journey it has been! We have, over the past four weeks, traveled a lot of holy ground as we recalled both the struggles and the perseverance of the saints who have walked before us. We began in the first two weeks with a sweep of historical characters, and in some contexts, saints we have known in our own lives, pointing to their perseverance through times of struggle as examples of what it means to live strong in the faith. Last week, we ventured into the middle of the storm as we confronted some of the harsh realities about the God we worship and considered the fullness of the biblical witness on the nature of our creator. We ended by pointing again to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of the faith, as the one to whom we must look for the most complete picture of what living strong in the faith looks like. And so finally, this week, as our series concludes, we will “bring it on home” as we reflect on what it means to be living strong in the faith as followers of Jesus Christ in the particular context of the Wesleyan tradition.

This week’s reading begins with the words “let mutual love continue.” It ends with: “Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

How are we to run this race that is set before us? How are we to find the fuel we need to keep living strong in the faith, especially when times get tough?

First, by letting mutual love continue. We need to continually breathe in love for God, love for neighbor, and love for self …and breathe out love for God, love for neighbor, and love for self. With every beat of our heart, every breath we take, every thought we have, our spirits should be shaped by our desire to love God and love others. It is a critical part of everything we are and everything we do as members of the body of Christ.

And second, by offering a sacrifice of praise to God in three ways: confessing the name of Jesus as our Lord and Savior, doing good, and sharing what we have.

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend the Young Preachers Festival at Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. During the event, I sat in on a class taught by Bishop Scott Jones, who at the time was transitioning from his appointment as the bishop for the Great Plains Annual Conference to a new episcopal area, the Texas Conference.

The class was on preaching for the whole church, but the part I want to share with you was Bishop Jones’ timely reminder on the Wesleyan Way of Salvation. For United Methodists, salvation is not about a singular moment in time. While conversion – or confessing the name of Jesus as Lord and Savior – is critical, we need to remember it is only one step in the journey toward sanctification. Here are the notes I took from Bishop Jones’ lecture on the Five Steps in the Wesleyan Way of Salvation:

  1. Acceptance. Accept that God loves us exactly as we are. God loves us, each one, particularly as unique individuals. Each one of us is created in the image of God, and Christ died for every one of us. There is universal redemption. There a lot of people who feel as if they are not of value, who do not know that God loves them just as they are. We need to preach that all people are loved just as they are by a loving and merciful God.
  2. Confession. We all sin. We are all equally in need of redemption. We need to name sin in our preaching and teaching. We need to name sin as the disease that afflicts us all. And we need to confess our own sins. We all struggle with the same things.
  3. Repentance. There are people headed toward hell. Their lives are a wreck. They are in danger. Repentance means simply to change direction. It means a change of heart and mind. It means seeing the world differently. It means we turn and head toward heaven instead of heading toward more hellishness.
  4. Justification. There is a moment, or moments, when we hear God’s offer of grace and we respond. We accept the gift of God’s grace, and it changes us. Some people never wander from the faith. Others stray away, and God reaches out a hand to bring them back. Whenever or however it happens, we must make a decision to give our lives to Christ.
  5. Sanctification. We move in and live for the remainder of our lives inside the house of God’s grace. Our lives exhibit the fruits of the Spirit, and we are moving toward perfection. We are asking ourselves how are we living as kingdom people, every day, in every way.

(These are my brief personal notes on an important subject about which I invite you to read and study more about with your congregation. A good starting point would be this excellent article, “Opening Ourselves To Grace,”written by my colleague, the Rev. Dr. Steve Manskar. Also see the four-session DVD study, “Opening Ourselves to Grace,” available from the Upper Room Bookstore. These resources would form the basis for an excellent sermon series!)

For those in the Wesleyan tradition, the way of living strong comes directly through sanctifying grace. The journey to perfecting faith requires intention, practice, and sacrifice, not just by the fruit of our lips, but by the fruit of our whole lives, through our loving actions that are joining God in Christ in the work of transforming the world in which we live. Living strong as Methodist disciples of Jesus Christ is as much about the journey as it is about the heavenly destination.

Certainly we believe we are “going on to perfection.” But no one ever promised that the way to that destination was going to be an easy road to travel. As we struggle to run the race that is set before us, we would do well to remind ourselves that even though the great cloud of witnesses who traveled this route before believed it to be the only journey worth taking, it was still a struggle every step of the way for many of them.

Why would we expect any different for us? Why would we think that our journey toward perfection would be without twists and turns, some of them difficult and painful?

The good news is that God promises to be with us the whole way along, through the times when the road is easy and the times when we face steep hills, rocky paths, and perilous twists and turns. But we can go on. We can persevere to “lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1b-2, NRSV).

And we can continue “living strong”in the faith because we can lean on the everlasting arms of our Lord when we get weary. We can trust that our precious Lord will take our hand and guide us along, through the storm, through the night, and lead us on, to the light.