Trained To Endure

Hebrews 12:4-11

As a young adult, writer Andrew Leland was diagnosed with a rare disorder that caused him to go blind. In an article in the  New Yorker, he points out that throughout history people have either bullied or coddled visually impaired people. But he gives an example of one school that empowers the blind by challenging them to achieve new heights of independence. He  writes:

In 2020, I heard about a residential training school called the Colorado Center for the Blind, in Littleton. The C.C.B. is part of the National Federation of the Blind and is staffed almost entirely by blind people. Students live there for several months … learning to navigate the world without sight. They take a radical approach to cultivating blind independence. Students use power saws in a woodshop, take white-water-rafting trips, and go skiing. To graduate, they have to produce professional documents and cook a meal for sixty people.

The most notorious test is the “independent drop”: a student is driven in circles, and then dropped off at a mystery location in Denver, without a smartphone. (Sometimes, advanced students are left in the middle of a park, or the upper level of a parking garage.) Then the student has to find their way back to the Colorado Center, and they are allowed to ask one person one question along the way. A member of a support group told me, “People come back from those programs loaded for bear” – ready to hunt the big game of blindness.[i] Can you imagine that? Dropped off who knows where after driving in circles, blind, and told to make your way back to the school? Talk about a terrifying challenge!

Not bullied. But also not coddled. Pushed. Challenged. Encouraged. Empowered to learn to navigate this world and complete any number of tasks without the use of their eyes. In our text today, the pastor who wrote Hebrews gives us one of the primary keys to perseverance and persistence in following Jesus. That key is the perfect fatherhood of God. As we continue our journey together through the New Testament book of Hebrews, turn with me to Hebrews 12:4-11.

Perseverance and persistence are critical as we follow Jesus, because we live in a world that doesn’t follow Jesus, and doesn’t WANT to follow Jesus. Just a few verses before the passage we’re looking at today, our pastor challenges us to “look to” or “fix your eyes on” Jesus as we journey through this life, because when we take our eyes off him – either intentionally or by getting distracted – we won’t finish the race well. We won’t last follow him all the way through.

That’s what was starting to happen to the small, beleaguered Christ followers to whom this sermon was written. They were taking their eyes off Jesus and focusing more on the trouble creeping up on them because they followed Jesus. Instead of fixing their eyes on Jesus, who was with them in the struggle, they were focused only on the struggle, on the mounting pressures.

When they’d first started to follow Jesus, he was their whole world. They stood in awe at the great love of God, who sent the Son to take the sins of the world upon himself, offering us forgiveness and life. They joyously received the gift of grace God offers in Christ.

But then … the pressures started to mount. They were Jewish Christ followers who, because they followed Christ, couldn’t go to synagogue anymore. They’d been kicked out. Cut off from their Jewish faith community. Some were losing their jobs as non-believing family members pushed them out of the family business. Their marriages were often a challenge, because often one spouse placed their faith in Christ and the other didn’t. And on top of that, following Jesus didn’t protect them from the common struggles of life that all human beings face – illnesses and accidents and financial struggles and death.

Sounds like life trying to follow Jesus for us today, doesn’t it? Everything started out so great, but the more I follow Jesus, the more I kind of rub people the wrong way. Now, I get it, some of that is probably my own fault. I’m called to be different, but not a jerk. Still, just following Jesus is hard. People don’t always get it. Get me. Get him. I didn’t expect it to be this way.

And I don’t get protected from the common struggles of life either? Geez. I think I’ll tap out. Or at least take a breather. Maybe follow Jesus a little less closely so I don’t stand out so much. Thanks for the offer of abundant and eternal life, but I think I’ll take a break. We may not have used those words, but we’ve all wrestled with that impulse at some point.

Our pastor starts by offering two gentle words of warning. First, he reminds these early tired Hebrew Christ-followers that they haven’t yet had their blood spilled for Jesus. It’s likely that Claudius was their current Caesar, and the pressure was certainly mounting. But Nero, who followed Claudius, wasn’t in power yet. Yes, things could, and for them would, get worse. But they weren’t there yet. Jesus’ blood ran like a river from the cross. He experienced the darkness of sin and death and separation from the Father to the full.

Oh, there are places in this world where the blood of martyrs runs like a scarlet river down the street. But we’re actually a lot like those tired, discouraged Christ-followers in Rome. We’ve haven’t had to shed our blood yet. Following Jesus is often a challenge. There are times when it’s great, and times when we’re confused or scared. But our suffering, even to the point of death, pales in comparison to the suffering of Christ on the cross, where he bore not the sins of one or a few but the sins of all. Where he actually BECAME sin in our place.

First, a bit of a reality check. You haven’t shed any blood yet. Ostracized? Yes. Ridiculed? Sure. Ignored? Yep. Killed? No, not yet. Sounds a lot like life for us here in the United States, doesn’t it? Hard? Yes. Lethal? No. And even when it becomes lethal, what Jesus went through, and the gift of eternal life that God offers in Christ – makes even that worth it.

Second, you’re forgetting God’s Word. Look at Vv. 5-6. Our pastor is quoting Proverbs 3:11-12 here. She chose this specific passage for a reason – it is the only place in the Old Testament where God’s faithful people are so clearly called sons and daughters of God. Not just the people of God. Not even the family of God. Deeply, deeply loved sons and daughters of God.

When we take our eyes off of Jesus and start to focus only on the troubles surrounding us, feeling overwhelming to us, we tend to stop letting him speak to us through Scripture too. We stop reading the Bible. We stop studying the Bible. We stop meditating on the Bible. And when that happens, our mindset and worldview are shaped not by God and what he says to us, not by Truth, but by the prevailing winds of culture and society. We forget that we have a God who walks with us even through the valley of the shadow of death. We forget that we are deeply loved sons and daughters of God.

Sons and daughters of God. Look at Vv. 7-11. Good parents are invested in the growth and development of their children, aren’t they? We aren’t like sea turtles, that lay their eggs and then leave their babies on their own when they hatch. We don’t just toss our babies out into the world like a sea turtle – like, well, good luck. I hope you make it. No! We spend time shaping and forming our kids, don’t we.

Sure, we take their emerging personalities and gifts into account. When I was a kid, I was an athlete and I was in 4H. I took exactly zero voice lessons or instrument lessons. After elementary school I was in exactly zero musicals and plays. I was good a basketball and raising and showing livestock. Now, our kids enjoy sports, for sure. But none of them lettered in a varsity sport in high school. Their gifts and skill sets emerged in other areas. Most notably singing and acting, although Aubrey did show horses for years.

People ask Becky and I where our kids’ singing and acting gifts came from, and we look at each other like, I dunno. I mean, I’m known in our family and this church as Tone Deaf Jeff. I love music. I listen to music all the time. And I appreciate all kinds of music. I have hard rock playlists, old jazz playlists, and choral anthem playlists. But I can’t create music at all. I usually pass right on through the right note on my way to other places.

Becky and I had to call out our kids gifts, give them opportunities to develop those gifts, even challenge them sometimes or allow them to be put in situations that forced them to grow into their gifts. Even though they weren’t gifts we had a lot of experience with.

We are deeply loved sons and daughters of our perfect heavenly Father. God challenges us  and puts us in positions to grow too. Our pastor uses the word “discipline” to describe God’s shaping work in us as his children. When we hear the word “discipline” in the context of parenting, we tend to think of something punitive. I’ve done something wrong and must be punished. But that isn’t what our pastor is describing here.

Healthy discipline actually has three components. Yes, one is corrective. You’ve made a mistake or gotten off track, and I’m going to make sure you learn from this and grow. But unlike punitive discipline, corrective discipline is focused not on an angry parent taking their frustration out on a wayward child, but on helping the child not make the same mistake again. It always focuses in the end on restoration and reconciliation.

There is a very dominant view in the Christian world today, a leftover from the prosperity gospel movement, that tends to think that if I’m struggling or suffering in any way, I must have done something wrong. And if I’m struggling or suffering because of my faith in Christ, I must have gotten off track. That view contradicts everything Scripture teaches. Yes, there are times when God corrects us because we’ve gotten off track, but the goal is always restoration and reconciliation, not being ostracized. And that isn’t really what our pastor is dealing with here.

The second component of healthy discipline is the preventative component. The goal there is keeping us from getting too far off track or in trouble to begin with. We teach our kids to look both ways before crossing the street, and not to play in the street, and to always wear a helmet when they’re riding their bikes, not because we’re fuddy duddies or want them to be miserable, but because we know they can get hurt doing that, and we don’t want them to get hurt.

God’s discipline includes a lot of preventative work in our lives. IF we’re willing to listen to his voice speaking to us in Scripture and in the community of Christ followers. God points out to us things like out of control lust or jealousy or anger and how they can get us into trouble.

And God produces his fruit in our lives by putting us in situations where we can allow him to do just that. God shapes us in patience by putting us in situations where we have to be patient, with others and with God. God shapes us in joy by putting us in situations where joy is difficult. God shapes us in perseverance by putting us in situations that require perseverance. He teaches us to trust him by putting us in situations where we HAVE to trust him. Sometimes, when I encounter resistance in some way in life, it’s because God wants to develop something in me.

There’s the corrective part of discipline, and the preventative part of discipline. And then there’s the educational part. We don’t think of that as part of our disciplinary work with our kids, but it is. Giving them chores so that they learn how to be a contributing part of a family. They aren’t fun, but it is a necessary part of developing and maturing, isn’t it? It helps our kids develop skills they’ll need too. Things like how to do the laundry, how to clean a bathroom, how to mow a lawn or use the tools in a workshop or change a tire or cook a meal.

God teaches us about himself by putting us in situations where we see him at work and have to trust him. Think about the Israelites marching around Jericho, the oldest walled city in the world. A city that had withstood attack again and again. God didn’t have them march around the city silently once a day for six days and then silently seven times on the seventh day and then blow horns and shout because he wanted to embarrass them. Or make them a laughing stock. He wanted them to realize who was going to be fighting their battles for them. He wanted them to learn to trust him, no matter what he told them to do, because it wasn’t about their military prowess. It was about God fighting on their behalf. But it felt dumb and was a struggle to do what God wanted them to do, I’m sure.

As human parents, we discipline our children so that they’ll learn about themselves and the world they live in. Eventually, the goal is that they’ll want to be around us, but won’t necessarily NEED us.

God, on the other hand, as our perfect heavenly father, disciplines us so that we’ll learn more about who HE is and learn to trust him, no matter what our eyes and ears are telling us is happening. Maturing as followers of Jesus doesn’t mean that we’ll depend on Jesus LESS because our faith is so strong. NO! It means that we’ll depend on Jesus more and more. We’ll lean on him more quickly and easily, because we know how strong he is. As we mature in Christ, we become MORE dependent on Christ, not LESS dependent.

Pastor John Yates III once worked for the British scholar and Bible teacher John Stott. Yates reflected on the time when Stott’s aging and disability started to slow Stott down. Yates says:

Stott spent the last 15 years of his life going completely blind. It began with a small stroke that knocked out the peripheral vision in his left eye, forcing him to surrender his driver’s license. And over the years that followed, this man who wrote more books during his lifetime than most of us will read in an average decade became unable to see the pages in front of him. But that wasn’t all. His body grew increasingly weak. He needed more sleep. He was eventually confined to his bedroom.

I spent three years working closely with John when he was in his early 70s. I was in my mid-20s. It was absolutely exhausting. I’ve never been around another person with a capacity for work as fast as his. He was the most disciplined and efficient man I’ve ever known. But there he was, years later, now in his 80s and into his early 90s, with his mind as sharp as ever. But then he was unable to do much of anything, except to sleep, eat, and listen out his bedroom window for the call of a familiar bird.

Now I found this personally incredibly difficult to understand. Why would God allow a man like John to suffer the loss of precisely those faculties that made his life so meaningful and has worked so successful, if it just seemed cruel? It would have been better, I thought, for him to die or to suffer from Alzheimer’s, because at least then he wouldn’t have known what he was missing.

But then I finally begin to understand why John never seemed to complain. That’s because God was giving him the gift of absolute dependence. God was showing him that he delighted to offer Stott a dependence on him.[ii]

Yes, we will struggle in this world, even though we’re following Jesus. Sometimes, we’ll struggle BECAUSE we’re following Jesus. Maybe, instead of asking “Why, God?” when that happens, we need to ask, “What, God?” What do I need to learn about you here? What do I need to see here? How are you inviting me deeper into dependence on you here? Where can I show perseverance here? Let’s pray.

[i] Andrew Leland, “How To Be Blind,” The New Yorker (7-8-23)

[ii] John Yates III, “Season 1, Episode 1: We Have Forgotten We Are Creatures, Why Are We So Restless podcast (7-7-22)