On April 24, 1997, Alec Holden of Great Britain turned 90. On that day, he placed the equivalent of a $200 bet in British pounds that he would live to be a hundred. A betting company had placed Holden’s odds at 250 to 1; so on April 24, 2007, when he turned a hundred, he collected on his bet the equivalent of $50,000 in British pounds.
Holden, who worked as both a teacher and a carpenter through much of his life, credited porridge as his number one source of survival. He also confessed that in the days leading up to the big payoff, he was “very careful” and “frequently reminded himself ‘to keep breathing.’” (Associated Press, “Bet on century wins £25,000,” www.guardian.co.uk, 4-24-07, and “Good Week for Incentives,” The Week, 5-4-07, p. 8; www.PreachingToday.com)
Sometimes life gets so hard, you have to remind yourself to “keep breathing” just to keep going
So what do you do during those times? What do you do defeat the kind of discouragement that sometimes takes your breath away? What do you do to keep on going when you feel like quitting, so you can experience the “big payoff” at the end? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Hebrews 10, Hebrews 10, where we have the core, the summary paragraph, of this whole book addressed to discouraged believers, to people who are tempted to give up their faith in Christ because the hardships they are experiencing.
Hebrews 10:19-20 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh… (ESV)
If you want to defeat discouragement, then…
REMEMBER JESUS.
Recall to your mind what He has done and who He is.
Remember, 1st of all, that Jesus opened up a way for you to God. He made it possible for you to enjoy the very presence of your Heavenly Father.
Under the old way, only one man, once a year, could enter into the presence of God. That man was the High Priest, who on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) would wash himself completely, then enter the holiest of holy places in the Temple. There he met with God behind a thick veil, beyond which nobody else could go.
Then Jesus died on the cross, and that veil was ripped in two – from top to bottom. His broken body and shed blood opened a way for all of us at any time to be in the very presence of God Himself.
William Frey, retired Episcopal bishop from Colorado, talks about a time when he volunteered to read to a college student named John who was blind. One day Frey asked him, “How did you lose your sight?”
“A chemical explosion,” John said, “at the age of thirteen.”
“How did that make you feel?” Frey asked him.
“Life was over,” John responded. “I felt helpless. I hated God. For the first six months I did nothing to improve my lot in life. I would eat all my meals alone in my room. One day my father entered my room and said, ‘John, winter's coming and the storm windows need to be up – that's your job. I want those hung by the time I get back this evening or else!’
“Then he turned, walked out of the room and slammed the door.” John says, “I got so angry. I thought Who does he think I am? I'm blind! I was so angry I decided to do it. I felt my way to the garage, found the windows, located the necessary tools, found the ladder, all the while muttering under my breath, ‘I'll show them. I'll fall, then they'll have a blind and paralyzed son!’”
John continued, “I got the windows up. I found out later that never at any moment was my father more than four or five feet away from my side.” (William Frey, “When Words Come To an End,” Message delivered at Beeson Divinity School, Birmingham, Alabama, July 2003; www.PreachingToday.com)
As a believer in Christ, you are in your Heavenly Father’s presence at all times, even when He seems far away. That’s what Jesus did for you!
So when you get discouraged, don’t forget it! Remember that Jesus has provided direct access to God through a new a better way described in Hebrews 8-10.
Then 2nd, remember that Jesus is your great High Priest. In fact, He is a better high priest than any other priest or minister.
Hebrews 10:21 …and since we have a great priest over the house of God… (ESV)
That's what Hebrews 1-7 is all about. Jesus is God Himself – who became one of us to suffer with us. He sacrificed Himself on the cross for our sins; and now, He lives to intercede and pray for us all the time! That’s what a priest does – He makes sacrifices and He prays – and Jesus is the best!
When somebody says to you, “I’m praying for you,” isn’t that a huge encouragement? I know that Sandy and I are very encouraged when people say to us, “We’re praying for you.” That means so much to us, and many times it has been just the thing to keep us going. Well, the good news is Jesus is praying for you right now!
Please, don’t forget it! When you feel like quitting, remember Jesus. Remember what He has done and who He is. Remember that He gave you access to God, and He is praying for you right now as your Great High Priest.
Now, since this is true, verse 22 says…
Hebrews 10:22 …let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (ESV)
If you want to defeat discouragement, remember Jesus and pray in faith. Approach God’s presence with full confidence. Come to the Throne of Grace with the assurance that God will take care of your every need.
Edward Everett Hale was chaplain of the U.S. Senate from 1903-1909. One day someone asked him, “Do you pray for the senators, Dr. Hale?”
“No,” the chaplain responded. “I look at the Senators and pray for the country.” (Letters of Grace, Newsletter, 5/95, p. 3; Bible Illustrator #2841; 8/1995.18)
Prayer – it's the best thing to do when you see trouble ahead. When things get rough, when you're discouraged, then come into God's presence and pray, but…
Do it as the text says, “in full assurance of faith.” When you pray, do it with the assurance that God will hear and answer your prayer in way far beyond what you can imagine right now. Pray with confidence that God will give you the grace you need to help in your time of need.
The daughter of missionaries to the Congo Republic in Africa once told Pastor Leith Anderson this story: As a little girl, she participated in a day-long rally to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the coming of missionaries to that part of Africa. At the close of a long day of speeches and music, an old, old man stood before the crowd and insisted on speaking. He soon would die, he said, and if he didn’t speak, information that he alone possessed would go with him to his grave.
He said that when the missionaries arrived, his people thought them strange and their message dubious. The tribal leaders decided to test the missionaries by slowly poisoning them to death. Over a period of months and years, missionary children died one by one. Then, the old man said, “It was as we watched how they died that we decided we wanted to live as Christians.”
Those who died painful, strange deaths never know why they were dying or what the impact of their lives and deaths would be. But through it all, they didn’t leave. They stayed because they trusted Jesus Christ. (Leith Anderson, “Mystery Martyrs,” Men of Integrity, January/February 2004)
And that’s what will give you the staying power as well. It’s your faith in Christ that keeps you going, your trust in Him.
Annie Johnson Flint put it this way in an old hymn:
When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,
Our Father's full giving is only begun
His love has no limit;
His grace has no measure;
His pow'r has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.
Do you need that kind of unlimited grace today? Then come to God in the full assurance of faith.
Pray in faith, because you are forgiven. When you trusted Christ as your savior, all your sins were washed away.
Hebrews 10:22 …let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (ESV)
You see, it would mean certain death to stand dirty and sinful in the presence of God. The high priest in Old Testament times, even HE had to take a ritual bath before He could enter into the holy of holies lest he die.
Well, here it tells us that we have already taken a bath. Our sins are already washed away. We are clean on the inside. God accepts us wholly and perfectly. Therefore, we can come boldly and confidently to His throne of grace to find help in the time of need.
In 1956, Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, and three other missionaries were murdered by the Waodani people in Ecuador. Several years later, the families of the slain missionaries returned to those same people to share the good news of forgiveness in Christ.
Nate’s sister, Rachel, spoke to the man who killed her brother. His name is Mincaye, and this is what she wrote in her journal about that encounter:
“Tonight when I was sleeping in the hammock I heard a noise. Somebody was walking around in the dark.” Mincaye called out to her and squatted by her fire, wanting to talk.
He said, “You said that Waengongi, the Creator, is very strong.”
Rachel said: “Mincaye, he is very strong. He made everything here, even the dirt.”
Mincaye said: “You said that he could clean somebody's heart. My heart being very, very dark, can he clean even my heart?”
Rachel said, “Being very strong, he can clean even your heart.”
She wrote that Mincaye got up and walked away, but that the next morning he came back excited. He said: “Star, what you said is true. Speaking to God, he has cleaned my heart. Now it's waatamo—it's clear like the sky when it has no clouds in it.” (Amanda Knoke, Decision, January 2006, p. 20; www.PreachingToday.com)
No matter what you’ve done, even if it’s murder, God can clean your heart. He can make it clear like the sky when it has no clouds in it!
All you need to do is confess your sin to Him and trust Christ with your life. Trust Him, who died for your sins on the cross and rose again. Please, if you haven’t done it yet, do it today! Call on the Lord and ask Him to clean your heart!
And for those of you who have already trusted Christ with your life, please realize that you are already clean! Please understand that God has already washed your heart clean, so you’re not afraid to come to Him with any need.
If you want to defeat discouragement, remember Jesus and…
PRAY IN FAITH, because you are forgiven.
Furthermore, remember Jesus and…
PERSEVERE WITH HOPE because God is faithful.
Hang in there! Don't give up your hope, because God always keeps his promises.
Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. (ESV)
God will never go back on His Word. You can trust Him to keep His promises no matter what. So don't give up. Don't lose your hope, because God will come through for you every time.
In his book, The Jesus Creed, Scot McKnight shares the moving story of Margaret Ault. When Margaret was just about to complete her Ph.D. at Duke, something unexpected – but quite welcomed – happened: she fell in love. She went on a date with a man named Hyung Goo Kim, and the proverbial sparks flew. But almost as quickly as the sparks became a fire, they were doused with water. Hyung Goo informed Margaret that he was HIV positive. Needless to say, Margaret was devastated. In her own words, “I'd just met someone I liked, and we were definitely not going to live happily ever after. I felt like I had been kicked in the gut by the biggest boot in the world.”
Still, she and Hyung Goo were married. In his book McKnight asks the question many of us would ask: “Why would anyone invite into the core of their being so much pain?” He then goes on to share that the answer unfolds in the rest of Margaret and Hyung Goo's story. He writes:
When Margaret was in graduate school at Duke, she and Hyung Goo loved to walk in the Duke gardens, and so knowledgeable did they become of its plants that they “supervised construction” of a new project. They walked through each part of the garden routinely and had names for some of the ducks. In their last spring together, the garden seemed especially beautiful [to them].
Hyung Goo died in the fall and Margaret returned to the gardens in the spring where a memorial garden of roses was being constructed in his honor. In her book, Sing Me to Heaven, Margaret reflects on the days she returned to the gardens. She writes:
Where peonies were promised, there were only the dead stumps of last year's stalks; where day lilies were promised, there were unprepossessing tufts of foliage; where hostas were promised, there was nothing at all. And yet I know what lushness lay below the surface; those beds that were so brown and empty and, to the unknowing eye, so unpromising, would be full to bursting in a matter of months.
Then she asks, “Is the whole world like this? Is this what it might be like to live in expectation, real expectation, of the resurrection? Was not Hyung Goo's and my life together like this? Empty and sere, and yet a seedbed of fullness and life for both of us. He died, and I was widowed; yet in his dying, we both were made alive. (Scot McKnight, The Jesus Creed, Paraclete Press, 2005, pp. 286-288; www.PreachingToday.com)
Margaret found hope in the midst of her pain, because she refused to focus on the deadness around her. Instead, she focused on the promise of life. You see, God’s promises are like seeds planted in a “brown and empty” world. What seems so barren will one day be bursting with life and beauty and joy. So, please, don’t give up on God even in the midst of your pain.
If you want to defeat discouragement, remember Jesus and pray in faith, because you are forgiven. Remember Jesus and persevere with hope, because God is faithful. And finally, remember Jesus and...
PROVOKE ONE ANOTHER TO LOVE, because Jesus is coming.
Spur each other on to compassion, because your redemption draws near.
Hebrews 10:24-25 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (ESV)
Jesus is coming soon, so let’s get together as often as we can. Let’s get together so we can spur one another to love and good works.
During the Great Depression, nine ordinary young men from the University of Washington accomplished an extraordinary feat. They labored together in a brand-new rowing program to take on much stronger rowing programs like Cal Berkeley, Harvard, and Yale. And they won!
In his book The Boys in the Boat. Daniel James Brown describes what the boys' coach saw as they worked with and for each other: “He… heard them declare their dreams and confess their shortcomings… He learned to see hope where a boy thought there was no hope… He observed the fragility of confidence and the redemptive power of trust.”
Brown details the grueling training schedules, early mornings and late nights, the lack of money, and the desire to quit. He examines the lives and the challenges of each of the young men and their years-long striving for victory. Then he tells what the coach discovered as nine friends fought for their dream:
He discovered that the mystical bonds of trust and affection, if nurtured correctly, might lift a crew above the ordinary sphere, transport it to a place where nine boys somehow became one thing—a thing that could not quite be defined, a thing that was so in tune with the water and the earth and the sky above that, as they rowed, effort was replaced by ecstasy. It was a rare thing, a sacred thing,
In 1936, those nine young men took their rowing shell, the Husky Clipper, to Hitler's Germany to take on the world in the Olympics. And they brought home the gold. (Dick and Ruth Foth, Known, WaterBrook, 2017, pages 188-190; www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s a beautiful picture of the church! It’s ordinary people coming together to spur each other to extraordinary things. It’s people who share their shortcomings and dreams. It’s people who sometimes feel like quitting, but together find a way to replace effort with ecstasy and take on the world!
You can’t do that alone, so get together with God’s people as often as you can. Don’t neglect coming together, especially as the days get harder and harder before Jesus comes again.
During the Civil War, General Corse and his men were guarding the fort at Altoma Pass. General Hood, and his army surrounded the fort and ordered General Corse to surrender. Corse refused, and many died in the battle that followed. The situation grew hopeless, but the defenders remained at their posts and refused to give up.
Then a white signal flag, across the valley some 20 miles away, waved the message: “Hold the fort, for I am coming.” General Sherman's army was on its way. The defenders of the fort would be rescued if only they could hold on for a little while longer.
Today, we see the signals of Christ's coming. The stage is set for the end-time events as described in the Bible. Israel is in the land and controls the city of Jerusalem. World powers are aligned as predicted in the book of Daniel. We have the technology to number every individual as described in the book of Revelation.
The signals are all there – Jesus is coming very soon! So hold the fort! Don’t give up, for your redemption draws near!
If you want to defeat discouragement, remember Jesus and pray in faith, because you are forgiven. Remember Jesus and persevere with hope, because God is faithful. And finally, remember Jesus and provoke one another to love, because Jesus is coming soon!
Amy Carmichael, who was bed-ridden for the last twenty years of her life, put it this way: “It is not really what we go THROUGH that matters, it is what we go UNDER that breaks us. We can bear anything if only we are kept inwardly victorious... If God can make His birds to whistle in drenched and stormy darkness, if He can make His butterflies able to bear up under rain, what can He not do for the heart that trusts Him? (Amy Carmichael, “Learning of God,” Christianity Today, Vol. 37, no. 13; www.PreachingToday.com)
In your storm, look to Jesus and trust Him!
