Homecoming Shell Point Baptist
Pastor Allan Kircher 14 oct 2012
”Looking back to witnesses, up to Jesus, and forward to joy.”
Hebrews 11:39-12:2
Today we celebrate our 24 year anniversary.
Now this is a time when we reflect on the history of this church
• When we think about those who have stayed
• Those who help make this church what it is today
• We think/those who have went/to serve the Lord elsewhere.
• We think/those who have/ultimate joy and now visit permanently with our Lord.
So today we celebrate our homecoming.
Even if Beaufort or the surrounding area is not your hometown
• even if your home as a child was less than ideal
• even if your home life today is in shambles
• even if your family is being challenged by what seems to be insurmountable odds
• we invite you to “hang your hat” for a little while this morning
I extend to you an opportunity to reconnect with God and with His people.
• Look around you today.
Recognize the familiar faces of those who have journeyed alongside you for many years.
Remember those experiences/moments in times past that made you smile and smile again.
• Appreciate the many faces
• Both new and familiar that are among us today.
• Make a new friend or renew an old acquaintance.
• Most important of all
• redirect your thoughts toward a God who has been faithful to bring you to another Homecoming season
So whether you’re coming, or going, or already there, I have this simple message, “Welcome home.”
• It’s time to celebrate homecoming.
• Shell point has had its peaks and its valley’s.
• But through 24 years, we have persevered/race.
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The entire existence of the church has had its valley‘s
• They were discouraged.
• Life had trampled them to the point of rejecting their faith in Christ.
• We often speak of someone in an athletic contest who gets trampled by his or her opponent.
• Man, it’s discouraging to get trampled.
• Have you ever been trampled by life?
• Have you ever been trampled by your boss?
• Have you ever been trampled by somebody you thought was your friend?
• I run into trampled people all of the time
• and so did the writer to the Hebrews
To encourage a group of “trampled” Christians, the Hebrews 11 writer presents to us a kind of spiritual homecoming.
He gathers together the names of those who have faithfully passed the legacy of faith on to the next generation.
He reflects on the lives of these heroes and heroines of the faith.
He talked about Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, and Samuel.
Ones who kept faith alive in their generation, even though it meant great personal sacrifice to each one of them.
The same is for us here in this fold.
• We must keep the faith
• Endure sufferings
• Persevere through the trials we will face.
• And through that race, we see…..
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"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (2 Timothy 4:7).
So at the end of his life Paul said, "All my life has been like a fight and like a race.
• If you can say this you’re on the right road.
• Can you say this in the commitment to the church?
• To prosper her for the sake of the gospel?
• To labor selfishly for Christ.
• Trusting God's promises
• walking by faith in the Son of God
• resting in the easy yoke of Jesus
Can we say on homecoming:
• Day and night
• by every means graciously given to me,
• I have fought the good fight and run the race of perseverance.
This is your church, your ministry, your passion.
This is the Christian life you are called to live.
1 Timothy 6:12, "Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called."
And to explain, he said in verse 11, "Flee [the love of money]
• Flee all this; pursue righteousness, godliness
• Faith, love, perseverance, gentleness."
Note the two words: "flee"/"pursue"
• flee the love of money and all the evils that grow out of it
• pursue faith and love and perseverance.
• These are the words of war: Flee! Pursue!
• We should know nothing of coasting Christianity here.
Nor does the author of the letter to the Hebrews.
That's why the main point in this morning's text is the imperative of Hebrews 12:1, "Let us run the race set before us."
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Battling the Tendency to Coast
• The Hebrew Christians had gotten tired.
• A lot of time had passed since they were first fired-up for Jesus.
• It’s been 500 years since the promised land.
Hebrews 10:32-33 says, "Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering,
• And we should on this day of homecoming.
• Never forsake the assembly, the fellowship
• The cause for Christ.
Hebrews further tells us, "Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again."
• Meaning there’s no growth in the believer
• There stagnant
• Content with coasting through their salvation.
• Church, we can ill afford to do this.
They have begun to coast and, as 2:3 says, "neglect so great a salvation."
The situation is very serious and the writer suggests that some are showing that their faith is phony and they have "tasted the powers of the age to come" in vain (6:5).
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Shell Point turned 24 years old this week.
• To some churches we have been around a long time.
• O how easy it is for a church to get tired and begin to coast.
• Or to get diverted with mere maintenance ministries.
• Or to get careless in spiritual vigilance.
• Or to quench the Holy Spirit with passionless, dead, dutiful religious exercises.
• O how real is the danger!
And the book of Hebrews was written to keep it from happening.
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And so the writer says,
"See to it, brothers,(that is, fight the fight! Run the race!) that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.”
If this arises, what to do, "Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.
Here’s what we are to do on this homecoming year.
• Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
• Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy
• Without holiness no one will see the Lord.”
• There it is: Run the race! Fight the fight!
• Pursue peace! Pursue holiness!
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Hebrews 12:1 is a trumpet call
(or the warning gun that the last laps are starting)
• See your life as a race to be run with passion and zeal and energy and discipline.
God says, "lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely [or so easily distracts]," he meant "get serious about the race!"
Test yourself. Are you running or are you coasting?
• You can get back in the race this morning. How?
• V. 1 says by "throwing off weights and sins."
That means getting things out of your life that make you more worldly-minded and putting things in your life that make you more heavenly-minded.
• It means praying without ceasing,
• hiding God's Word in your heart
• meditating on it day and night,
• exhorting one another every day
• taking up your cross daily,
• reckoning yourself dead to sin
• putting to death the deeds of the body,
• plucking out the eye of lust, fleeing fornication,
• cutting off the hand of covetousness,
Yielding your members as instruments of righteousness,
• presenting your bodies as living sacrifices,
• putting on the armor of God,
• resisting the devil
• taking every thought captive to obey Christ.
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The great danger of every aging church and every aging denomination, and every aging person
• (namely, all of us)
• we might begin to coast instead of run
• fiddle around instead of fight.
To this the writer of Hebrews, and I, and God say to you this morning,
• there is a better way to come to the end of life
• namely, running the race and fighting the fight.
• Doing your very best for Christ and His church.
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So what I want to do is point you to three motivations for this race in this 24th year.
• God does not call us to meaningless, exhausting drills like laps around a field that get us nowhere.
• Or meaningless worship service to go thru the motions.
• Or singing praises to fill time.
• He calls us to a race that has a great goal
• Goals that have powerful incentives along the way.
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1st motivation is Looking Back to Witnesses
verse 1:"since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses . . . "
As we run the race at SPBC there is a big, dense crowd of saints pressing in on the track.
• Throughout Christendom they have preceded us.
• They have strived as we strive today.
• The saints of chapter 11 along with those Christians before us.
• The Verhaegae’s,Chuck Flowers,Betty Dewilde, Judy Daniels, and I could name so many more.
• Saints who strived the proliferation of Christ’s Word.
• Who by their character, pose, and dedication to this church
• Continued Shell Point in her quest for lost souls.
They finish the race, circle around, and press into the crowd along the route where we are running today.
• Now how is this supposed to motivate us?
• Two ways.
• "It Can Be Done. It Can Be Done." It will be done.
We remember their diligence for this church on homecoming; they’re devotion which is not in vain.
We are running the race and we look out into the crowd and realize that every one of them finished the race,
• and we feel, "It can be done. It can be done."
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We look/saints/Bible/we see examples of faith and perseverance under every imaginable circumstance:
• David who committed adultery and murder,
• and he finished
• there's John the Baptist who had a weird personality
• and he finished;
• there's Joseph sold into slavery, and he finished;
• and Mary the prostitute, and she finished;
• and Job who suffered so much, and he finished;
• and Stephen who was hated and stoned, and he finished
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Well, by the power and faith that got them through I'm going to finish too!
• That's the first way these witnesses motivate us.
• "Something Better"
• "And all these [the people mentioned in chapter 11],
• though well attested by their faith
• did not receive what was promised,
• Since God had foreseen something better for us."
• And what is this "something better"?
• The answer is the last phrase of verse 40:
• "That apart from us they should not be made perfect."
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In other words, the final perfected salvation all of the saints who have gone before—
• the resurrection of the body
• the reign of Jesus on the new earth
• the restoration of all things
• Will not happen without all the runners finishing the race.
They finish the race, get a ribbon, but not the gold cup,
then circle around and crowd in on the sidelines of the marathon route to wait for us.
Because God says: no one gets the glory of final perfection until all have finished the race.
• When all the runners are across the line,
• then the joy of everyone will be even more
• We will be glorified not one at a time
• but all together in one great consummation of the kingdom.
That's the 1st motivation this homecoming: look back to the witnesses who have gone before:
• they finished their course by faith, so you can too;
• All the saints wait with longing and excitement for you to finish the race.
• What lies ahead (you see it in all their faces)
is an indescribable divine act of resurrection and restoration and glorification of all the saints when the last one crosses the finish line.
• So today lay aside the weights and sins and RUN!
• Be motivated for Christ, for your church, for the homecoming of all the saints.
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2nd Motivation is Looking Up to Jesus
It’s very easy to hear/command,"Run the race! Fight the fight!"
• You’ve heard it for years.
• But obeying that command is another story!
• Some crawling/walking/jogging/sprinting/
• We are responsible to obey.
• Responsible to the fellowship of the church.
But the writer wants to encourage us to look to Jesus.
Verse 2: "Looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith."
I see Jesus as the pioneer and perfecter of our faith in three ways.
• First, he has given/foundation of our faith/start to finish.
• He pioneered by enduring the cross and despising the shame
• He perfected by sitting down triumphantly at the right hand of the throne of God.
• Our redemption, the foundation of our faith, is complete.
Second, he has given a perfect model for faith/start to finish.
He trusted his Father from beginning to end in his earthly race.
Third, he is the giver/sustainer of our faith from start to finish.
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Hebrews 13:21, "May God equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in you that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ."
• "Without faith it is impossible to please God".
So the God who began a good work in us is going to complete it—
• through Jesus Christ
• The author and finisher of our faith.
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So don't even begin to think that finishing this race will redound to your glory because it depended on your strength.
We run in the strength that God supplies that in everything God may get the glory through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 4:11).
So look to Jesus, take heart, trust him, and run.
Final motivation is Looking Forward to Joy
When we look to Jesus, one of the things we see (according to verse 2)
is that his perfecting work of redemption was sustained by the joy that was set before him.
Verse 2: "Looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross."
• What God wants us to do when we look to Jesus and is to be like Him.
• He endured the cross for the joy set before him;
• We should endure the hardships of our marathon of faith for the joy set before us.
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Dear homecomers, look forward to your rewards.
Hebrews 10:35, says, “Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which had a great reward.
A deterrent to apostasy is the prospect of the rewards for those who believe.
• “You know what the promises are,”
• “You know how wonderful and unequaled and how superior they are
• You know that Christ will be faithful in fulfilling them.”
• Don’t let your confidence waiver now.
• Claim the promises.
• Secure the rewards.
Look back and remember how wonderful it once seemed, and look ahead to how even more wonderful it is going to be.”
• Your endurance/patience will not cause you to turn back.
• Your enlightenment in the gospel will not be for nothing.
• But are you doing it, living it, and mastering it.
• The love of the gospel, the love of Christ in your heart.
• Your confidence will not be in vain.
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But many had not done the will of God fully, they have not trusted in His Son fully.
And until then, they could not receive what was promised.
• They knew the promises, rejoiced in the promises
• and even had suffered for the promises.
• But they had not received the promises.
The church is still filled with people like this.
It is the negative side of Matthew 7:22-23, “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’”And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”
Oh, how I pray for your soul to be emancipated in Christ and devoted to His church.
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• Today on this homecoming come home to Christ again.
• To the service of His kingdom
• You know where your heart is.
• You know where your devotion lies.
You need to persevere, so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.
• That is, for the joy set before you.
• So the key to laying aside weights,
• like love for possessions, and gossip
• and slander, and covetousness,
• and running through the tough experiences of life
The key to a 24-year-old church pressing on with strength and courage and hope is to have our eyes fixed on the indescribable, unending joy at the end of the race.
The joy of all the saints raised and glorified with us in one great consummation of the kingdom;
The joy of faith and holiness perfected by the work of Jesus;
The joy of being with Jesus, the greatest person in the universe.
• So let us run the race, and fight the fight of faith
So today, I call us, plead us to be people of faith.
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A person of faith has this quiet confidence that God will take care of them
• Even though dreams/shattered and plans lay collapsed at their feet and they feel trampled by life.
• The world is not our home.
• We belong to another one, so let’s live it now!
People of faith have a clear witness.
• They have a different set of priorities
• Speak a different language with an eye on the eternal.
People of faith realize they’re on a journey
• This world is simply one little phase of this journey that extends into the eternal realms.
People of faith have the ability to distinguish between the temporal and the eternal.
People of faith stand to inherit God’s blessings and provisions.
• This is their security.
The Hebrew writer was persuading his readers to not turn back and in so doing encourages them and us to press on.
• Will you press on today, make a commitment.
• Be the best Christian you can be.
• Strive for your church on this homecoming day.
Enjoy your homecomings, but don’t get too comfortable here.
• You’re on a quest and you’re not home yet.
I want you to think of the day when you will be wrapped in the arms of Jesus.
• Dare to imagine that moment.
• You finally see the Savior you have served, trusted, and longed for.
There He is, the Savior who gave His life for your redemption and who brought you to faith and turned you from death to life.
• I don’t know what that day will be altogether.
• the Lord will draw us to Himself and wrap His arms around us and say
• "Welcome Home."
• At that moment in time
• all of the “tramplings” of life while on our earthy journey will forever be dissolved
• And we will hold Him and He will hold us and we will weep for a long time.
• Imagine that moment.
• Because it will be the ultimate homecoming
1 Timothy 6:12, "Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called."
