Stick-to-it-tiveness
A Sermon by Rev. Mark R. Thomson
Harundale Presbyterian Church
June 6th, 2004
Scripture: Romans 5:1-8
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be
acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer.[1] Amen.
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nce
upon a time I lived in the beautiful valleys of central Pennsylvania as a
pastor and tried to get internet service.
Turns out there was a problem in my phone connection between the house
and the central office several miles away.
It was an intermittent problem that came and went, but sometimes in the
afternoon, the line would go dead for a few hours. I called several times for maintenance, and
each time they sent out the repair person, by the time they got there –
wouldn't you know it -- the line was back working. So, we kept at this for months.
After
the first few times, I got several calls from the company's customer advocacy
group. They wanted to profusely
apologize for the problem, and make sure that I was happy! I could sense that what they were really
worried about was that because of all of the trouble, I might cancel the
service. Of course that is the way that
capitalism works - if someone doesn't supply good service we go to the other guy,
so we can be happy.
I
told the guy on the phone, this was an intermittent problem. It won't be easy to fix. I actually thought they were trying pretty
hard and appreciate his call. We
eventually got it fixed, but it took a lot of work, and some
inconvenience. I got to know the phone
guy pretty well, and he was surprised that a pastor knew so much about phone
service. I didn't tell him where I used
to work.
Had
I sensed negligence or a “don't care” attitude, that would have been
different. They were working hard to
solve the problem, but it was taking time.
I am sure, however, that there have been calls made to some customers
where the customer advocate's ear started to melt because phone service wasn't
perfect!
I
don't live life expecting anything to be perfect, and I don't hold it against
anyone when things don't always work.
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don't know if its a trend, or if its just me
getting older, but it seems that there is a lot less stick-to-it-tiveness these
days. When things get tough, the masses
try to go somewhere else where it isn't tough.
I
notice it in work. We see a lot of job
hopping.
It
takes about a year in a new job before your bosses and others can see what you
can do. That's when the responsibility
starts to increase. People start to
rely on you. With some time under your
belt, you now have experience that others look to. People have expectations. As experience grows, one is expected to take
more of the lead. Its interesting that
this is when people start leaving, once again to hide in the obscurity of the new
employee who doesn't know anything yet and therefore can't have much
responsibility.
People
seem afraid of responsibility. Its
always better when its someone else’s problem to bear the burden of success or
failure. No one wants to take the lead
anymore, because it’s the leaders that people shoot at first (metaphorically
and really). It today’s world, its a
wonder anyone would want to run for office with the amount of scrutiny and
criticism one must endure. I admire
those with the stick-to-it-tiveness to stay with it.
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hen
we look to Paul we find a man deeply acquainted with all of these life
realities. He was a leader, who took on
a lot of responsibility starting new churches.
He had arguments and detractors who ridiculed him. He always seemed to struggle with his
credibility. "For," he says in
first Corinthians 15:9, "I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be
called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God."
But
Paul lived his life modeled around the servant leadership Christ exemplified in
the cross and resurrection. It is a
life we are to embody as well.
Paul's
life was built on the solid foundation that even though there are hardships,
even though life can throw some serious curve balls, within it all is God's
resurrecting power.
We
talk of carrying our cross - carrying the burdens of life and not shirking
responsibility.
The
cross becomes the symbol for those more difficult and sometimes unpleasant
aspects of life: rejection, hardship,
unfairness, anxiety, and finally death.
The
resurrection is God's answer to the cross - through the cross comes the dawning
of a promised new day -- trusting by God's power we are Risen.
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ur
cultural motto is "The Pursuit of Happiness". That's what we spend our energy doing -
pursuing happiness. We all want to be
happy! Companies spend a tremendous
amount of money trying to keep us happy.
In
many ways we have created the illusion that somehow everything will go perfect
in life, that we are in control…Doctor's will never make mistakes, our
appliances will always work, friends will always be loyal, our cars won't break
down at the worst possible moment, families will never argue, churches will
always be conflict free…
That
is the grand illusion of the pursuit of happiness. Life is not perfect. And for those who try to live in the illusion
that life is perfect, it comes as a horrible shock when things go awry. We will fail sometimes; others will make mistakes, technology doesn't
always work when we want it, even churches will not be perfect until God's
kingdom comes.
Paul
says, "Rejoice in suffering!" and we flinch, "Paul, I don't want
to suffer at all." But Paul knows
something about life…there will be suffering.
The Greek work there can mean "trouble, distress, or hard
circumstances". I think we can
relate.
Only
God is perfect. If we don't learn to
deal with those hard times in life, we will be paralyzed by life, or we will
spend it searching for a perfection that doesn't exist.
The
only reason Paul can say this is because of the cross and resurrection. It is his model for life. There will be suffering - the cross. But there will also be resurrection - and
that is our hope. Cross and Resurrection
together offer us hope: Hope that
suffering is not in vain, and that out of suffering God can bring new life.
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aul
outlines a process that suffering can take us through - suffering produces
endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
Lets
look at that this for a moment. The cross represents the suffering, the
injustice, the anxiety, the unfairness, the cruelty, and the pain that this
life is capable of. It is in the midst
of this that we find our God. Not a God
who avoids the pain of life, but a God who takes it upon himself. If we believe this, then we know deep in our
soul that in our lives there will also be times of suffering, as there was in
Christ's life. We may not hang on a
cross as Christ, but each of us suffers the hardships of life in different
ways. That is a difficult reality to
face, especially in a culture that pursues happiness; we would rather not face such a reality. But sometimes it intrudes upon us.
The
question is, how do we react to that suffering.
Paul says that suffering produces or brings about endurance. The meaning here focuses on patience:
stick-to-it-tiveness. Suffering
produces patience, because we must endure as we watch for the resurrection that
God will bring in God's time and not ours.
This
is where we as a society are weak. We
are unwilling to endure - we'd rather leave or sue someone. We expect quick fixes for things that take
time to heal. There are times when we
must simply endure the discomfort and trust in God's resurrecting power. The patience of the cross is Christ speaking
to the folly of humanity, "Father forgive them for they know not what they
do."
Endurance
is not giving up on that wayward relative.
Endurance
is riding out those who criticize you.
Endurance
is not always being popular. But doing
what is right.
Endurance
is the possibility of failure, but trying anyway.
Endurance is the disciple of
not falling back into destructive behaviors but sticking with the program.
Endurance.....is hard.
How
can we endure?
Listen to Paul - because God's love
has been poured into our
hearts through Holy Spirit that has been given us.
God
loves you.
God will never leave you.
If God is eternal, then we
can endure quite a while ;)
The
payoff - endurance produces
character. Another use of the Greek word
here is "proof": endurance
produces proof. We get to know a
person's character because they are consistent.
Endurance means being consistent, so our character is
"proven". The character of
faith is to keep trusting in God no matter how bad it gets. To give up is to prove our faith is weak, to
endure proves our faith. It isn't
about proving it to others or even to God - it proves it to ourselves - faith
becomes a part of how we live our life - it becomes a part of our character.
And
by enduring and proving our faith, we then find we are living in hope…patiently
waiting and trusting that God will act, that where there is cross, there will
be resurrection. We put our hope in God,
and not in some illusion of perfection that doesn't exist and we will never
find. We rejoice in suffering, not
because suffering is good, but because we know that out of suffering God brings
new life through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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ow
let me caveat this. Many times, the
Christian call to endure suffering, to "rejoice" in it as Paul says,
is misinterpreted as simply taking abuse and not doing anything about it. There are abused men, women, and children in
the world for whom the resurrection is not more abuse, but being freed from
that situation.
Paul's
suffering is always redemptive suffering, not abusive suffering. It could
mean dying for what you believe in, but that is not silently taking abuse,
that is standing up for a cause and being ready for the potential
consequences. It is redemptive suffering
if the cause is true and just.
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f
there is the cross, there is the resurrection…there is new life…God will bring
us through the suffering. That is our
hope. That is our joy.
Show
the world that Christian's don't run when it gets hard.
Show them this because we know God doesn't run from
them
when things get hard.
For
while we were still weak....Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:6)
Let
us be a people who stick with it through the hard times.
Let us Christians be known for our
stick-to-it-tiveness!
To him who
loves us
and has freed us from our sins by
his blood
and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and
Father,
to him be
glory and dominion for ever and ever.
Amen.[2]