Effort is Needed!

Sermon for October 21, 2007

1. Good Morning. Let’s pray. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

2. Opening Comments: Well last Sunday if you were with us our Lord was clearly encouraging us to grow in three primary Christian virtues. Can anyone remember what they were? One had to do with Ruth and Naomi . . . . yes, the virtue of “Fidelity – faithfulness.” And then Paul was encouraging his protégé Timothy to what? . . . Yes, greater “endurance – courage” and finally one of ten lepers whom Jesus had healed came back to thank Him . . . . Yes, the virtue of “thankfulness.”

So what did you hear our Lord saying to us this morning that may have some continuity with last Sunday’s message?

Let me put that question more simply – what did you hear God saying in one or more of our readings this morning?

Let me summarize what we just heard read and see if as I summarize them, you can pick up on a theme in all of them.

In our Old Testament reading Jacob who had tricked Esau out of his family inheritance was trying to appease Esau who was coming towards him with 400 men – perhaps an avenging army. It was in this context that Jacob found himself alone on a river bank one night and it was there that he met an angel who turned out to be God and Jacob wrestled him until he blessed him. Hmmmm – Jacob wrestled a blessing out of God!

What’s perhaps the predominant idea here? . . .

Let’s turn now to our Epistle reading in 2Timothy chapter 3 verses 14 through chapter 4 verse 5. In these verses Paul is encouraging his protégé Timothy to preach the Good news in season and out of season and to use God’s Word to teach doctrine, for reproof, for correction and for instruction in righteousness. Hmmmm – so what’s perhaps the dominant thought here? To preach when it’s easy and even when it gets hard!

And finally in our Gospel reading Jesus presents us with the parable of the persistent widow who prevailed against a pagan judge with her perseverance and then Jesus uses this parable to encourage all of us to persevere in our petitions to God. We’re being told not to give up – but to persevere in prayer. What’s the predominant theme in this parable then?

So what if any is a resonant theme in all of these three readings?

What struck me was the idea of “effort” – Jacob had to fight God for a blessing . . . Timothy had to preach the Word when it was easy AND when it was hard and finally the widow received what she wanted as a result of dogged tenacity.

Effort – real effort counts!

3. Do you think that we can assume that God just might be recommending this to us as a spiritual reality? Effort – real effort - counts!

Could it be that God is asking you and me to try harder? To work harder at being a follower of His!

And what could that mean for us right here and right now? What, perhaps, might you and I do differently?

Some of us may be discouraged with ourselves and even perhaps with those around us. Could God be saying to some of us this morning:

· Sit up, stiffen your spine. Now it’s time to dig in and really work hard at being who you say you are.

Could God be saying:

· Forgive those around you for not being who they say they are. Forgive yourself for not being all that you know you can and should be. Do the work of a real Christian – forgive and forget – extend grace. Love those around you!

Then again could God be saying:

· Stop complaining. Get out of the soft chair of your quiet despair and come to a place of humility and get to work at being the holy ones of mine.

Could God be saying:

· Stop withdrawing – it’s the easy way out and step up to the mark and be counted as one of my brave ones! Pick up your cross and follow me to Calvary!

4. Let’s look a little deeper into all of this shall we?

We’re going to look at the story of Jacob and Esau last because it’s in this incident that it all comes together.

So let’s look a little more deeply at Paul’s exhortation to his protégé Timothy to be ready to preach when it’s easy and when it’s hard.

The Greek verb for “to preach” is: khru/ssw and it means: to make public declarations, to proclaim aloud.

Now what could God be saying to you and me this morning – here in Irondequoit on Sunday morning October 21?

Is it conceivable that God could be encouraging us to be more public – more vocal – in our proclamations of Him?

When was the last time you publicly declared your faith out loud?

Do people where you work know that you’re a Christian? Do you know who are Christians who work around you?

It takes courage and effort to do this because we’re going against the flow and, heck, some of us run the risk of being sued for proselytizing in our place of employment! We could get persecuted even prosecuted for doing this!

But Jesus has a word for those of us who are persecuted and it’s this:

Matt. 5:10

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And you know what - just perhaps God’s news that He is God and we are not and that He loves us and His world - really is “Good News” and that some will hear it as just that and come to know and believe in Him! And you will have been used to accomplish this. One of these days perhaps 450 years from now you may bump into them in heaven and get a great big heavenly hug for your obedient bravery and love!

So what could you do right now to ensure that from now on you’re going to extend more effort to proclaim the good news that there really is a God – that He’s good and that He loves those around you who don’t know Him?

5. Now let’s turn briefly to the wonderful Gospel reading. It’s in these verses that we heard the parable about the persistent widow.

Let me share something rather funny with you and it’s all the more hilarious because the story centers around a woman. You see, when the judge says to himself:

Luke 18:4

  . . . . ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’”

Now let me say that last phrase again: the judge is concerned that the widow will quote “wear me out with her coming!” A better more literal translation for that phrase would be “lest she come and give me a black eye!” Ha! The Greek expression is at home in the boxing arena!

She must have been one terrifying widow don’t you think – she scared the living daylights out of this careless judge.

Now clearly God isn’t being compared to this rather pathetic judge. What is being commended to us is “persistence.”

The widow kept on coming – she wanted justice. If we keep coming back for something like justice God will eventually grant us our petition but persistence is being commended here.

6. And now finally please turn with me to the Old Testament reading about the twins Jacob and Esau.

We’re told that it had been ordained that:

“Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you will be divided; the one will be stronger than the other, the elder will serve the younger. Gen 25:23.

The brothers would struggle with each other, but the outcome was foreordained. The elder would serve the younger. Esau would serve Jacob. Now if it’s already ordained why isn’t Jacob simply waiting for it all to turn in his favor instead of “helping the process.”

Does Jacob sound like any of us here? That sounds a heck of a lot like me – how about you? Have you ever tried to “help the process along?”

Jacob bought the birthright (25:27-34) from Esau, who was willing to sell it for a pittance. The birthright is the right of the firstborn to inherit the family estate. Then Jacob deceived his father, Isaac, into giving him the blessing that was intended for Esau (27). The irony of the cycle is that Jacob did not know he had been foreordained to prevail. He schemed to get what God had already granted him at birth.

And so there was great enmity between these two brothers. Jacob was desperately aware that he had done his brother Esau wrong and he knew that Esau had every right to come after him for vengeance and so he turned in the darkness of his night to God and wrestled with Him for His blessing. So desperate was he to know that all would be well that He took God on and wrestled a blessing out of Him! For truly God did bless him. God gave Jacob a new name!

Listen again to Genesis 32:27-28:

Gen. 32:27

  The man asked him, “What is your name?”

 “Jacob,” he answered.

Gen. 32:28

  Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”

Ah what a name that was: Israel, which means “the one who prevails with God!”

Have you ever “prevailed with God?”

The Hebrew word being used here is the verb “Sarah” - h∂r and it means to persist, to exert oneself, to persevere — to exert great effort.

Have you ever contended with God? Have you ever been persistent with God?

Now it’s important here that we not get the sense that we can badger God into giving us His blessing. The key here is the fact that Jacob wanted God’s blessing and God had always wanted to give it to Him! It’s about wanting what God wants for us!

Jacob wasn’t asking for a new posche or a new washing machine or a new Rolex watch . . . but rather “a blessing!”

The Hebrew word for blessing is “Barak” and it literally means: to kneel or to bless!

Ah for Jacob to receive the blessing he had to kneel to receive the blessing!

Can you see that for Jacob to receive the blessing he had to submit to God – to bow his head in submission and in so doing to receive the very thing that he had been wrestling God for.

Think about this for a moment. It was foreordained by God that Jacob was to receive his father’s inheritance. You see God had always planned it this way but Jacob kept jumping ahead of God so God literally had to wrestle with Jacob always intending for Jacob to win but to win wanting what God wanted to give him rather than wanting to get what he wanted to get regardless of God!

Ah! Now we’re getting to the heart of our reflection this morning and it’s this – God will wrestle with us until we bow our heads and receive what He has been wanting to give us from the beginning!

SO WHY THE WRESTLING?

Because we think we know what we want but God knows better so He wrestles with us until we bow the head and knees and receive what He has wanted to give to us from the beginning!

C.S. Lewis put it this way in his book entitled “Weight of Glory:”

“. . . Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased!”

Did you hear that – “We are far too easily pleased!” and so God wrestles with us and refines our desires. God is not wrestling with us to hurt us or frustrate us but rather to bless us but the blessing which He has always meant to give us comes only when we bend the knee, bow the head and receive what He wants to give us and it’s always much much much much better than anything we thought we wanted!

Yes, effort counts because it fuels the refining process and brings us ultimately to a place where we can receive God’s blessings!

Let’s pray. . .