Pastor Wayne Cordeiro
October 25, 2020 - W2043

"The Gift of Endurance"

Uncommon Gifts Strangely Wrapped

Pastor Wayne Cordeiro

October 24 & 25, 2020 

Aloha, New Hope Ohana!  Today, we will continue our series, "Uncommon Gifts Strangely Wrapped,” and learn why endurance is presented as a gift when it is often linked with pain, discouragement, scorn, and heartache.

For four years I ran in the Honolulu Marathon with 30,000 other people from all over the world. Most people who sign up for this 26.2?mile marathon are overachievers; but there are those who come just to have some fun, not knowing how difficult running a marathon can be. How long will they last? Many people run for 20 to 22 feet and at the 10 or 20?mile marker they run into an invisible thing we call "The Wall."  That's when your body feels depleted of all energy and your muscles start to take in lactic acid, causing fatigue; and every step you take feels like someone is hitting your thighs with a hammer and you become nauseated. Those who have prepared well before the race can run right throughThe Wall, while about 80 percent of entrants will hit The Wall and crawl to the finish line or stop and quit! 

Marathons and races are won or lost at The Wall.  It is a defining moment! Every one of us will hit The Wall at one time or another in our lives--that’s where our race will be won, lost, or abandoned. It's also at The Wall where God offers a beautiful "Gift of Endurance," wrapped in a strange package of trials, exhaustion, and suffering!

Endurance is defined as the ability to withstand prolonged hardship, wear and tear.  It is an ability to survive the most difficult situation with steady and focused effort towards a goal. It is the capacity to finish well, the one gift that will enable us to honor commitments when commitments are difficult to honor.  Every meaningful accomplishment or relationship will require endurance.

Hebrews 12:1-3 NASB says: "¹Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ²fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross.... ³For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."

The book of Hebrews talks about a cloud of witnesses. They are the saints that have gone before us; the martyrs whose lives we look at and are encouraged by knowing that they lived through adversity and won their race.  We can do the same!   

THE GIFT OF ENDURANCE  

The Gift of Endurance is strangely wrapped in discouragement, pain, wrestling, and frustration; but if you'll open it up, you'll find a gift that will make all the difference in the world--and help you to finish well! This gift is not given at the beginning of the race--it is offered at The Wall, the moment when you feel most like quitting--when you come to the end of your strength and want to bail out! The Gift of Endurance is offered when you make a choice to endure!

I've been in competitive canoeing in a 20?foot long, carbon fiber canoe with six guys in it for eight years, going from Molokai Island to Oahu through The Channel, a very treacherous and rough 41 miles of open water. To prepare for this, I started training months in advance: run, lift weights, swim, and dive, over and over, for eight months because I must be in good physical condition for the 5 1/2?hour race!

At the start of the race, everyone is excited, and adrenaline pumps out of every pore. The horn goes off and a hundred boats start racing!  An hour or two later, your canoe and escort boat are all alone.  The others are all finding their own waves and route.  Many times, the canoes would capsize, and we had to tread water, pull together, bail the canoe out, and start again.  You can’t be afraid--instead, you look for the face of the waves and navigate!  

When someone gets tired in the middle of the ocean, they signal the escort boat and switch paddlers. As one jumps off the canoe, treads water, and wait for the escort boat to come over, the other is in the water at the same time, pulls himself up and in, grabs the paddle, and starts paddling in tempo!  Everything must be in sync or the canoe could capsize!  After 4 hours of this, everything in my body is fatigued.  The sun is beating down on me, and I am paddling as hard as I can--then, everything shuts down!  I hit The Wall and cannot go anymore! But right then, the Lord spoke to me and said, "This is the moment you've been training for."  You don't train for the race, but for the moment in the race that you're ready to quit, and about to give up!  

James 1:12 NIV says: "Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him."

You will also hit The Wall when it comes to the word of God.  People will persecute you because of the word of God if you are a Christian. If you've been raised in a Christian home, you will come to a point in your life when you will wrestle like crazy to find your own faith.  You cannot ride on your parents' faith, your pastor's faith, or a friend's faith.  You need to establish your own faith, and even if you struggle, God is saying that everything that you've done is for this moment.  You win here. You'll make it to the end and claim your reward! 

How do I gain the capacity to receive this kind of gift?  How do I at least get through The Wall?  To be honest, a lot of Christians never receive this gift because they never make it to The Wall, they disqualify themselves before they even get there!  When you do get there, what will give you the capacity to receive this gift? 

1. Take Time to Grow Deep Roots   

Jesus told a parable about a sower who throws seeds on the ground that fall on four different types of soils.  We'll talk about the seed which fell on rocks and lacks deep roots.  

Matthew 13:20-21 NASB says: "²⁰ The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; ²¹ yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away."

Every one of us will hit The Wall, but if you have developed deep roots, you'll be able to work through the wall.  You'll break through the quitting point and be there when God offers you The Gift of Endurance! 

2. Take Time to do Daily Devotions

We follow a little acrostic called S.O.A.P. “S” is for Scripture, “O” is for Observation, “A” is for Application, and “P” is for Prayer.  If you do this once a day and you improve 1 percent a day, just think, after a year, you will have improved 365 percent--that's how you build deep roots!  You can be smart as a whip but fail as head of your family, and then your family fails, so you are what they call efficient but not effective!  Being efficient is doing things right; being effective is doing the right things! Make doing daily devotions a habit.  Make it a rule in your life to measure how you're doing spiritually by reading your Bible and journaling.  This is how you spend time with God.  What if God just spent as much time with you every day as you spend with Him?   

3. Spend Time with God to Effectively Run the Race He Set before You 

Every one of us has a different race.  Identify your assignment. If you are a mother, God is saying that's your race; if you are a husband, a dad, a sister in Christ, a brother in Christ, identify your race.  God will let you know, and He will hold you accountable for how much of what He asked you to do that you've done!  We can do a lot of very religious things, but the question will be: “Are you doing as I asked you?”  What is worse than failing at the things that matter is succeeding at the ones that are fruitless! Keep your eyes on Jesus.  If you don’t know what your assignment is, then wait on the Lord and He will give you your task for this season. 

Isaiah 40:31 KJV says: "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

4.  Look at the Bigger Picture and Find Joy   

In the end, you will stand before Jesus, and be accountable for what you have or have not done.  

James 1:2-3 CSB says: "² Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance."

In other words, you came to The Wall and received a gift strangely wrapped called Endurance, and the result is the ability to endure!  Your endurance carries you all the way without failing, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing! 

Hebrews 10:36 NASB says: "For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised."

Let me tell you a story of Mabel. She is not in the Bible but is in a state-run convalescent home.  On the brightest of days, the rooms and hallways still seem dark and cold with the ever-present odors of sickness.  It's not a place one gets used to.  

Just before Mother’s Day, I visited the Home looking for someone well enough to receive a flower or a word of encouragement.  I saw an old woman sitting in a wheelchair at the end of the hallway of a floor that I had not visited before.  Her empty stares and whites in her pupils told me that she was blind.  A large hearing aid over one ear told me that she was almost deaf, and on one side of her face a large sore was a telltale sign that she was being slowly eroded by cancer.  

We became friends, and I'd visit her over the next three years.  Some days, I would read to her from the Bible, and when I would pause, she'd continue and finish the passage from memory, word for word.  Other days, I would take a hymn book and sing to her, and she knew all the words to every song that I sang. 

I never heard her ever complain or speak of loneliness or pain, and it wasn't long before I would have a sense of deep wonder.  She often said, "I think about my Jesus. He's been awfully good to an old lady like me.  Lots of folks think I'm too old?fashioned, but that's okay."  And she would break out into a song: "Jesus is all the world to me, my life, my joy, my all.  He is my strength from day to day.  Without Him, I would fall.  When I am sad, to Him I go.  No other one could cheer me so. When I am sad, He makes me glad because He's my friend."  Mabel was an ordinary human being who discovered a new-found power to do extraordinary things.  Her whole life consisted of following Jesus the best way she knew how.  Patiently enduring. Even in the midst of the trials, rather than sulking or complaining, she found joy in singing.

To those who endure to the end, the Lord has promised the crown of life. Uncommon Gifts Strangely Wrapped in despondency, pain, trials and suffering, are offered at The Wall.  This gift of endurance makes all the difference in the world and it will help you to finish well!  

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:

1. What do you think you will change in your life in response to today's message?

2. How important is the community/family in a time of endurance?

3. Look at the Bigger picture to find joy.  What is your joy contingent on?

4. Identify the race God has set before you.

5. Connect with a life group, and S.O.A.P. together.