Holy Spirit Series 2000
Life in the Spirit: Faith For The Distance
1 Corinthians 15:58
Dr. Roger W. Thomas, Preaching Minister
First Christian Church, Vandalia, MO
Life is a marathon, not a sprint, so the saying goes. The same is true of the Christian faith. Finishing well, not just starting with a flurry, should be every believer’s goal.
Writer Eugene Peterson, in his excellent book on the Psalms, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, explains the problem we face with this principle,
“Our attention spans have been conditioned by thirty-second commercials. Our sense of reality has been flattened by thirty-page abridgments. It is not difficult in such a world to get a person interested in the message of the gospel; it is terrifically difficult to sustain the interest.”
It is just this quality of finishing well, persevering until the very end, that marks great lives and strong faiths.
It was perseverance as much as genius that made some of the great heroes of all time what they were. Thomas Edison didn’t just sit down one day and decide to invent the incandescent light bulb. He sent messengers around the world searching for just the right fiber for the filament. But even that wasn’t enough. Edison tried over 18,000 combinations and experiments, each one failing, before he finally succeeded. A starter and not a finisher? What if he had given up after just 17,000 attempts?
Reportedly Jonas Salk, one of the great medical heroes of the twentieth century, worked sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, for three years before he finally developed the polio vaccine. What if Salk had been a sprinter but not a marathon man?
On a less serious note, but equally impressive, is the record of one of baseballs greatest legends. Do you know who holds the major league record for the most career strikeouts at 1300? Probably not. But if I told you the same player also held the record for the most homeruns for most of baseball history, you would guess his name immediately. Indeed, Babe Ruth hit 714 homeruns but struck out nearly twice as often. If quitting at the first sign of failure or difficulty had been in his nature, Ruth’s name would have never made the record books in either category.
One of my favorite all time stories deals with perseverance, sort of. Perhaps you read it in Reader’s Digest several years ago. There was an accident in a West Texas oil field. An explosion set an oilrig on fire. The flames were burning in controllably. Smoke clouded the horizon for miles.
All efforts to extinguish the inferno proved futile. The local riggers did their best. Texaco sent in a crew. All to no avail. A call went out to Red Adair and his oil fire experts in Houston. Within twenty-four hours a crew of dozens and trailers loaded with millions of dollars worth of the world’s best fire fighting equipment arrived.
After several tries, the Houston crew, exhausted and soot covered, reported to the site office set up about a half mile from the blaze. “It’s no use,” they told the company reps. “That fire is so hot no one can get within a hundred yards of it and live. We’ll just have to let it burn down some and then try again.”
At millions of dollars a day of lost revenues, the company wasn’t ready to take no for an answer. Surely there was someone who wouldn’t give up so easily. They called a press conference and announced to the watching world that a check of $100,000 plus expenses would be waiting for any fire company that could extinguish the oil well blaze.
About 50 miles away in a little dusty cow town, a volunteer fire department consisting of four weather-beaten old Texans and a rusty pumper just happened to have the TV on. As they watched the news conference, the old cowboys looked at one another and looked back at the TV and then back at one another. “Ain’t no fire around these parts we haven’t been able to put out. What do you say, we give it a try?”
Quickly they loaded up their equipment and headed down the country road toward their meeting with destiny and riches. They revved the old diesel to the max and roared in the direction of the well.
The volunteer captain wrestled the steering wheel of the old pumper around the final turn toward the fire as two of the old cowboys turned firefighters held on for dear life to the rear of the truck with one hand and their ten-gallon hats with other. Rusty fenders clattered and pistons knocked as the truck roared past the property sign. It gained speed as it approached the site office at the half-mile marker and blew right by Adair and Company’s staging area. The engine kept rolling and finally came to a grinding halt not fifty yards from the fire.
The old fire fighters immediately dismounted as if thrown from a bucking bronco. They each grabbed a fire hoses, turned the water on one another until they were thoroughly doused and then aimed the hoses at the flames. In less than fifteen minutes, the fire was out!
The company reps were delighted. The experts were dumb-founded and the news media went wild. Once everything was safe, a crowd immediately surrounded the new heroes. The questions flew—How did you do it? Why did you try it? Have you ever done it before? Finally, one of the reporters asked, “What’s a volunteer fire department like yours going to do with $100,000?” Without batting an eye, one old fire fighter shot back, “The first thing, we are going to do is get the brakes fixed on that truck!”
Perseverance springs from many motives. In the Christian life, it flows from our absolute confidence in the faithfulness of our God and the certainty of the Gospel.
Consider one verse of Scripture that makes this point:
“8Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain“ (1 Cor. 15:58).
Let’s break this verse down and learn its lessons about faith for the distance. It logically divides into three sections. Let’s start with the middle and work out:
I. The Call to Faith for the Distance—“ my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord”
Near the end of his life Sir Winston Churchill was invited back to speak at the preparatory school that he had attended as a young man. He had not been a good student. In fact, he finished in the lower third of his class. Most of his teachers had predicted that young Winston would never amount to much. But despite his less than stellar beginning, he did graduate from the prep school and later the university.
As you know, Churchill went on to become a decorated military leader and a notable artist and author. He became best known for his two separate terms as Prime Minister of England during some of the darkest days of World War II. By the time he was invited back to his school, he was a world famous leader and public speaker.
The school’s leaders obviously didn’t say much about Churchill’s student record. They were then more than happy to claim him as an exemplary alumnus. The head master primed the students for his assembly, “In a few days our Prime Minister will be here. He is one of the world’s greatest orators. Listen carefully and take plenty of notes.”
The morning arrived and the 5 foot 5 inch, 230-pound leader was enthusiastically presented. Churchill graciously acknowledged his introduction and then said, “Young gentlemen, never give up! Never! Never! Never! NEVER!” And with that he sat down. This was the sum total of his speech.
In effect, this is the message of our text. “Don’t be swayed. Don’t be shaken. Don’t stop believing. Don’t stop serving. Never, never, give up!”
There are three imperatives in this call to long distance faith. The word “stand firm,” describes something or someone that is settled or firmly seated. It brings to mind a solid foundation of a building, or the deep roots of a tall tree.
When my wife, Rose, and I were first married we lived in a number of different manufactured homes. That’s fancy talk for a “house trailer.” Those of us who lived on the edges of tornado alley quickly learned the importance of the “tie downs” for the trailer. Our mobile home was really not very mobile. It had probably not been moved since it had been trucked to the site years before. But a windstorm could quickly change that. More than once, I have see mobile homes completely blown to bits by a tornado or tipped of its supports by a strong wind. To prevent that unwanted fate, a house trailer had to be anchored with straps or cables to a footing or sometimes posts sunk deep in the ground. Only then did it stand firm.
This is a good illustration of the second word, as well. “Let nothing move you.” It could describe a trailer so solidly anchored that it stays put in the fiercest wind. It also describes a life built so solidly on Christ that nothing this world can toss at it can shake it or move it off course. Remember Jesus parable of the wise and foolish builders and the different outcomes of their efforts. This is the picture of a rock solid life.
The third phrase “always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord” is perhaps the most challenging. This describes service that overflows, effort without limits. It is one thing to stay the course or stand your ground. It is a lot harder to do it with enthusiasm and energy. Our temptation in the midst of adversity is not so much to quit, as it is to hold back.
How many times have you been tempted to just go through the motions? You are not ready to give up, but you no longer feel like putting yourself out? Maybe you are under appreciated? Maybe you just don’t feel like your accomplishing anything? Maybe it is the friction and conflicts or people problems that deflate your joy in service? It’s not always easy to “give yourself fully to the work of the Lord.”
Perhaps a part of our solution is to focus on that last part – “the work of the Lord.” If we do what we do—whether living right, praying hard, teaching truthfully, or serving humbly—to please others or even to help others, it can become very easy to throttle back in tough times. But if we are working for the Lord, then applause, recognition, or even results from people become secondary.
A man once approached Mother Teresa and said, hoping to impress her, “My vocation is to work for the lepers. I want to spend all my life, my everything, in this vocation.” She was not impressed. The spunky little Albanian nun replied, “You are making a mistake brother. Your vocation is to belong to Jesus. He has chosen you for Himself and the work is only a means of your love for him in action. Therefore, it does not matter what work you are doing, but the main thing is that you belong to him, that your are his and that he gives you the means to do this for him.”
“8Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain“
Let’s backup and consider the beginning of the verse. The first word of the text spotlights the cause or the motivation of this call to persevering faith.
II. The Cause of Faith for the Distance—“Therefore”
A therefore always signals a conclusion. When you see a “therefore” in the Bible, you need to stop and ask, “What’s it there for?” In this case, it is the final point of one of the longest chapters in the entire Bible. We often call it the “Resurrection Chapter” because it’s focus from verse 1 to the end is on the reasonableness and power of Christ’s physical resurrection.
The “therefore” of our verse points back to the contents of the entire chapter. The argument divides into three sections. Vss 1-28 points back to the history that our faith is grounded upon. The Gospel rests not on our accomplishments or efforts but upon what Jesus did once and for all. Verses 1-4 are worth remembering. —
1Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. 3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, (1 Cor 15:1-4).
We keep on keeping on because our faith is grounded in reality. Christ is alive. Death could not hold him. The tomb is empty!
If the first section of the chapter spotlights the past, the second section (vss. 29-34) speaks to the present. Why do we live the way we do? What motivates us to swim against the immoral currents of our day? One thing--our confidence that there is more to life than now! The resurrection of Christ past and the prospects of our resurrection future change how we look at life! Verse 34 provides the only reasonable response to the resurrection “Come back to your senses as you ought and stop sinning.”
The final section of the chapter (vss. 35-56) is about the future. Paul describes our future resurrection body. With a resounding shout of triumph, he calls believers to stay the course because of what’s ahead. “For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (vs. 52).
Not everyone knows or understands this. I remember vividly leading a Bible study of university students years ago. Present for the first time was an international student who had been referred to me by the Dean of Students because the newcomer needed a temporary place to stay. Do, or Dr. Do, as he could have been called was not just any student. He was young Vietnamese scientist sent to our university for the summer to do research under NATO and Pentagon grants. I would learn that he was one of the world’s foremost experts in some very technical field of physics with potential military applications.
Despite his credentials Do was a very quiet and humble young man. He was curious about anything American and eagerly accepted an invitation to attend the Bible study. We were in the Gospel of John. Something in the discussion introduced the resurrection. Do listened intently for several minutes as students and I interacted about the significance of Christ’s victory over the grave. I noticed Do becoming more and more agitated. Finally, he could contain himself no longer. He very respectfully raised a hand and waited for me to call on him.
“Do you mean,” he asked, “that you really believe that Jesus actually arose from the dead and is alive?”
He went on to explain that he had been born in Vietnam, been raised as a more or less agnostic Buddhist, had been educated by Catholic missionaries, and graduated from a prestigious university in France, but had never understood that Christians actually believed that Jesus was alive! He had seen movies about Jesus, even attended Catholic masses with his friends, but had never gotten it. Jesus lives.
Do you get it? When you do, it changes everything. “Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord.” We are in this for the distance. We do not give up. We will not settle for some half-hearted, going through the motions faith.
When I read 1 Corinthians 15, I can help but wonder why this discussion was necessary. What was happening in the Corinthian church that caused such confusion at such a basic point of Christian teaching? What kind of thinking led some to call into question the very foundation of the Gospel? I think the answer is found in the earlier chapters of the book.
If, as some in Corinth seemed to suggest, the basis of my faith and spirituality is found in my personal spiritual experiences then the historic truth of Jesus is secondary. The “hyper-spiritualists” in Corinth found their foundation in the “gift of languages” or special encounters with the divine, much like their pagan counterparts. Spiritual assurance came from visions, trances, or out-of-mind sensations, not something that happened years ago and miles away in a Jerusalem graveyard. Sound familiar? It should! The same sorts of sentiments keep popping up again and again.
Never forget, the Gospel is not about me. It’s about Jesus! It’s not about my experiences, but his. It is not about my works, but his work. My faith is focused on what he did not what I do or experience. Once I loose sight of that, I easily turn the gospel into a charade, a shallow imitation of the reality. It may have all the trappings of the real thing, but it doesn’t save, it doesn’t keep, it’s doesn’t keep me going when the going gets tough. The Gospel of Jesus does!
Why? What accounts for the tenacity of followers of Jesus? The answer comes in the final part of the verse. He ties it altogether in a final triumphant conclusion—
III. The Conclusion of Faith for the Distance—“because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”
Paul pulls no punches. The Christian life involves work. Faith calls for effort. Our works does not save us, but we are saved to work for Christ. As the Apostle states in Ephesians 2:8-10, “For it is by grace you have been saved, though faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” And then he adds lest we think faith offers an excuse for a useless, do-nothing life, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
What keeps us going for the distance? Why do we not quit when we encounter a rough spot in the road of life? Why do we refuse to take the path of least resistance? One very big reason---we know that it is worth it. Our work is not useless. Our work has a purpose. It is not in vain, pointless. Galatians 6:9 echoes this same appeal: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
What keeps our work from being useless? Two things:
First, there is a promise of personal reward. “Be faithful unto death and I will give you a crown of life” (Revelation 2:10), the Master tells us. None of us, not even the most diligent, self-sacrificing laborer for the Lord will ever give more than he receives. As Jesus told his disciples who were concerned about the high price of faithfulness, “And everyone who has left houses or brother or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).
Our greatest reward will not be crowns, or mansions, golden streets, or even kingdoms to rule. The highest achievement will be to simply hear “well done, my good and faithful servant.” Our labor is not in vain.
But there is another sense in which the promise holds true. Our labor is not in vain because our God is capable of using even our small and meager efforts like seeds for a harvest of potential results. We know that even though we may not see the harvest it will come. In fact, our efforts may sometimes not at all be like a gardener or farmer who works for produce a few months down the line. We may be more like a Johnny Appleseed who plants orchards and groves for another generation to harvest and enjoy.
“8Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain“ (1 Cor. 15:58).
I am always challenged and encouraged by the story of Elias Kimball. Kimball was a Sunday school teacher who worked with a class of young men in Boston. He was committed to his calling and energetically recruited young men to his class wherever he could find them. In 1858, he extended an invitation to a young shoe clerk that met on the street, not at all knowing what would happen as a result.
The shoe clerk showed up. He listened and learned. Soon he gave his life to Christ and he too became committed to reaching young men for the Gospel. The shoe clerk, Dwight Moody, eventually moved to Chicago where he started a Sunday School work among children that would eventually lead to Moody Church and Moody Bible Institute and a host of other works.
In 1879, Moody went to England to lead an evangelistic crusade. He wouldn’t become well known in the States until later. At first his efforts in England met with considerable resistance. The British clergy found the methods of the American uncivilized and overly emotional. One minister, F. B. Meyer was an outspoken critic of Moody until a lady from his church returned ablaze with compassion for the lost. Meyer decided to give Moody another chance and was won over by the revivalist.
Eventually Meyer himself, largely because of Moody’s influence, would become a world traveling teacher and preacher of the Gospel. Years later while speaking in American, F. B. Meyer was approached by a young preacher named J. Wilbur Chapman. Chapman was discouraged and ready to give up on the ministry. Through Meyer’s counsel, the Lord reignited the faith of J. Wilbur Chapman who went on to lead a very effective evangelistic ministry in the early 20th century.
Eventually Chapman needed an assistant to work with him. He recruited an enthusiastic but largely uneducated former profession baseball player who was working for the YMCA at the time. The ball player, Billy Sunday, would eventually lead over one million to the gospel.
In 1924 Billy Sunday preached a crusade in Charlotte, NC. It changed the city. One result was a prayer group that continued to intercede for the city long after the crusade was over. Years later, the prayer group sensed a need in the midst of the Great Depression for another such meeting. This time they recruited a Baptist evangelist named Mordecai Hamm to preach. Hamm was a fire and brimstone evangelist who preached hell hot and heaven sweet. On the last night of that crusade, a sixteen year-old farm boy walked down the aisle in response to the invitation. His name was William Franklin Graham or Billy, as millions would know him. The rest is history.
Whatever you think of Billy Graham’s methods or the details of his message, one thing is clear---he has presented the simple message of salvation through Christ to more people than anyone in our time.
As you think of this story, whom would you vote the most important? Graham? Sunday? They are certainly the best known. But in a sense, neither is the most important. It all started with a humble Sunday school teacher named Elias Kimball.
Most of us will never be a Billy Graham or a Billy Sunday? But you could be an Elias Kimball. You could be a humble, faithful servant whose name few may remember but the future harvest of your labors might forever change the world! If so, it will require faith for the distance.
“8Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain“ (1 Cor. 15:58).
***Dr. Roger W. Thomas is the preaching minister at First Christian Church, 205 W. Park St., Vandalia, MO 63382 and an adjunct professor of Bible and Preaching at Central Christian College, 911 E. Urbandale, Moberly, MO. He is a graduate of Lincoln Christian College (BA) and Lincoln Christian Seminary (MA, MDiv), and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary (DMin).
