67 Sermon Illustrations on Endurance

Yesterday on BreakPoint [ID #35809], I talked about a Christian ethic of hope — a hope not based on wishful thinking, but on the reality of God’s promises. It’s this Christian hope that gives us the joy, the self-sacrificial love, the boldness, and the endurance to carry on — even in tough times. You often see these fruits in the lives of devout believers.

For example: Justin Martyr, born around AD 100 to pagan parents; he grew up studying philosophy. But while in Ephesus he was impressed by the steadfastness of Christians under persecution and converted to Christianity. He is known for his “Apologies,” defenses of the faith addressed to those in highest power: the Roman Emperor and the Roman Senate.

Justin boldly defended the lives of his persecuted fellow Christians. For publically debating and defending the Christian beliefs in public, he was tried before a Roman prefect. When he refused to deny his faith, he was beheaded. But it was Justin’s hope in Christ that enabled him to boldly and sacrificially defend the truth.

Centuries later, Nien Cheng would stand up to the authorities of her day. Cheng was arrested in 1966 by Chinese Red Guards. Six years in prison she was pressured to make a false confession that she had been a spy for the imperialists. Despite torture, Cheng would not admit to something that wasn’t true.

Cheng was a Christian and although she couldn’t let the guards see her praying, she secretly turned to God and found solace for her grief and hope to face each day. Cheng was released under the pretense that her behavior had improved. But it was her hope in God that enabled her to endure her brutal treatment.

In a prison cell on the other side of the world, Armando Valladares spent 22 years because of his refusal to bend the knee to a communist regime. Valladares counseled and pled with other inmates to stay true to the faith over the 8,000 days of hard labor and solitary confinement.

He resisted communist indoctrination, saying “For me that would’ve meant spiritual suicide.” He says, “All the time I was in jail, I never gave up my freedom. My freedom is not the space where you can walk around in. There are lots of people in Cuba who have space to walk, and yet they are not free.”

For Vallardes, true freedom was “8,000 days of testing my religious convictions, my faith, of fighting the hate my atheist jailers were trying to instill in me with each bayonet thrust, fighting so that hate would not flourish in my heart.” When he was finally released with French intervention in 1982, he published his classic book Against All Hope.

For Justin Martyr, Cheng, and Vallardes, hope was not a flimsy optimism that everything would somehow work out alright. Hope was understanding that the reward for holding fast to God was a weight of glory that exceeded the pain of any momentary affliction.

For each of them, hope yielded joy, sacrificial love, boldness, and endurance. As we imitate them in their hope, these are fruits which not only would change us, but the world in which we live.

________

Copyright (c) 2009 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

"A man of courage flees forward in the midst of new things."

-- Jacques Maritain

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear -- not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave."

-- Mark Twain [used July 8, 2001]

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly."

-- Theodore Roosevelt

"Courage is rightly considered the foremost of virtues, for upon it, all others depend."

-- Winston Churchill

"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog."

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Courage...is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow."

-- Dorothy Thompson (1894 – 1961), journalist, cited in BITS & PIECES

"It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded."

-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Quotes from the Masters, July 5, 2001

"Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die."

-- G. K. Chesterton

"To keep our faces toward change, and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate, is strength undefeatable."

-- Helen Keller

"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm."

-- Winston Churchill

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues because upon it, all others depend."

-- Winston Churchill

"The first quality of courage is the willingness to launch with no guarantees. The second quality of courage is the ability to endure when there is no success in sight."

-- Brian Tracy

"Courage is fear holding on a minute longer."

-- George S. Patton

“Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.”

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, QFTM 1/3/04

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.”

-- Anais Nin, QFTM 1/3/04

"The test of courage comes when we are in the minority; the test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority."

-- Ralph W. Stockton, W&W 10/6/04

"Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They're just braver five minutes longer."

-- Ronald Reagan, 40th U.S. President, QFTM 2/21/05

"The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly."

-- Corra Harris

"Courage is fear that has said its prayers."

-- Dorothy Bernard

That is a remarkable record Colonel Roosevelt made in going through equatorial Africa for so many months in the jungle and in the swamp and yet never suffering any kind of ill-health for an hour of the whole time.

It would be a remarkable record for any white man, and is particularly so in the case of Mr. Roosevelt. As a youngster it was a question in his own family whether he would ever arrive at maturity. He was a sickly child.

The family, instead of coddling the youth, sent him out to the plains in the great Northwest to rough it on a cattle ranch. There he lived on plain fare, in poorly constructed houses, and rode a bronco from sunrise until dark, often before the sun rose and often after darkness set in. He returned to the house tired and slept soundly until the morning call came again. This was just what made the robust man of Mr. Roosevelt that he is.

Plain fare, plenty of outdoor life, with exercise, is the natural condition for man to pass his life in. Civilization, unless guarded against, levies a terrible tax upon human life. Fine houses, too comfortable clothing, a table too liberally supplied, make direct attacks upon man’s physical health. Late hours, irregular hours, overpacked rooms, with their fetid atmosphere, levy a still heavier tax.

Commander Robert E. Peary was asked what training was necessary for arctic exploration work. This was his reply:

One can train for arctic exploration as one would train for a prize-fight. The training consists of good habits, with sound, healthy body as a basis to work on. One must be sound of wind and limb, to use the horseman’s phrase, and he must not be a quitter. That’s the kind of training that finds the pole. (Text.)

"Quit!" "Give up, you're beaten," they shout and plead there's just

too much against you now, this time you can't succeed. And as I start to hang my head in front of failure's face, my downward

fall is broken by the memory of a race. And hope refills my weakened will as I recall that scene, for just the

thought of that short race rejuvenates my being. A children's race, young boys, young men; how I remember well,

excitement sure, but also fear, it wasn't hard to tell. They all lined up so full of hope, each thought to win that race or

tie for first, or if not that, at least take second place. Their fathers watched from off the side, each cheering for his son,

and each boy hoped to show his dad that he would be the one. The whistle blew and off they went, young hearts and hopes of fire, to

win, to be the hero there, was each young boy's desire. One boy in particular, his dad was in the crowd, was running near the

lead and thought "My dad will be so proud." But as he speeded down the field across a shallow dip, the little boy

who thought to win, lost his step and slipped. Trying hard to catch himself, his hands, flew out to brace, and mid

the laughter of the crowd he fell flat on his face. So, down he fell and with him hope, he couldn't win it now.

Embarrassed, sad, he only wished to disappear somehow. But as he fell his dad stood up and showed his anxious face, which to

the boy so clearly said, "Get up and win that race!"

He quickly rose, no damage done, behind a bit that's all, and ran with

all his mind and might to make up for his fall. So anxious to restore himself, to catch up and to win, his mind went

faster than his legs, he slipped and fell again.

He wished that he had quit before with one disgrace. "I'm hopeless as

a runner now, I shouldn't try to race." But, in the laughing crowd he searched and found his father's face,

that steady look that said again, "Get up and win that race!"

So he jumped up to try again, ten yards behind the last, if I'm going

to gain those yards, he thought, I've got to run real fast. Exceeding

everything he had, he regained eight or ten, but trying so hard to

catch the lead, he slipped and fell again.

Defeat! He lay there silently, a tear dropped from his eye, there's no

sense running anymore -- three strikes I'm out -- why try? The will to rise had disappeared, all hope had fled away, so far

behind, so error prone, closer all the way.

"I've lost, so what's the use," he thought, "I'll live with my

disgrace." But then he thought about his dad, who soon he'd have to

face. "Get up," an echo sounded low. "Get up and take your place. You were

not meant for failure here, get up and win that race."

With borrowed will, "Get up," it said, "you haven't lost at all, for

winning is not more than this; to rise each time you fall." So, up he rose to run once more, and with a new commit, he resolved

that win or lose, at least he wouldn't quit.

So far behind the others now, the most he'd ever been, still he gave

it all he had and ran as though to win. Three times he'd fallen stumbling, three times he rose again. Too far

behind to hope to win, he still ran to the end. They cheered the winning runner as he crossed, first place; head high

and proud and happy -- no falling, no disgrace. But, when the fallen youngster crossed the line, last place, the crowd

gave him the greater cheer for finishing the race. And even though he came in last with head bowed low, unproud, you

would have thought he'd won the race, to listen to the crowd. And to his dad he sadly said, "I didn't do so well." "To me, you won,"

his father said. "You rose each time you fell." And now when things seem dark and hard and difficult to face, the

memory of that little boy helps me in my own race. For all of life is like that race, with ups and downs and all. And

all you have to do to win is rise each time you fall. "Quit!" "Give up, you're beaten," they still shout in my face, but

another voice within me says, "Get up and win that race." Family Times

Wilma didn't get much of a head start in life. A bout with polio left

her left leg crooked and her foot twisted inward so she had to wear

leg braces. After seven years of painful therapy, she could walk without her

braces. At age 12 Wilma tried out for a girls basketball team, but

didn't make it. Determined, she practiced with a girlfriend and two

boys every day. The next year she made the team. When a college track

coach saw her during a game, he talked her into letting him train her

as a runner. By age 14 she had outrun the fastest sprinters in the

U.S. In 1956 Wilma made the U.S. Olympic team, but showed poorly. That

bitter disappointment motivated her to work harder for the 1960

Olympics in Rome--and there Wilma Rudolph won three gold medals, the

most a woman had ever won. Today in the Word, Moody Bible Institute, Jan, 1992, p.10

“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing [I do], forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Php 3:13-14 NKJV)

Perseverance

• one thing — Ps 27:4, Mark 10:21, Luke 10:42 — those who succeed are usually men who mind one thing

• forgetting — not obliterating from memory, but ceasing to trust

• those…behind — the part of the race already run

• and…forth[forward] — as the racer his hand; so, the Christian his heart and desire

• mark[goal] — the goal

• prize…calling[call] — the crown of life — 1 Cor 9:24-25, 2 Tim 4:7-8, 1 Pet 5:10

The believer pressing forward — G. Dumont

I. An exposition of the words

1. Paul’s activity:

(1) The mark he proposes to himself — perfection

(2) The means he chooses — “reaching forth”

(3) The end-the duties and rewards of the Gospel.

2. The principle which inspires his activity — his assurance of obtaining the prize.

II. The truths and duties which they include:

1. Saints on earth, however good, have not yet attained perfection;

2. We should imitate Paul’s activity;

3. The care of advancing in godliness ought to be our principal business.

One thing I do — I was, some years ago, writes a clergyman, travelling through the Forest of Dean, on a visit to the clergyman of one of the new district churches. My gig had gone by the road, and I was making a short cut towards the parsonage, when I encountered a poor forester, with a bundle of sticks upon his shoulder. Feigning myself a stranger to the country, I pointed to the church in the distance, and asked what it was. “That,” said he, “is our new church;” and then he proceeded to say, that they had a faithful minister, and it was a happy day for the forest when the church was built. “Well, my friend, do you attend the church?” “Ay, sure,” replied the man. “Were you there yesterday?” “Yes, that I was.” “What was your minister preaching about?” This last question seemed to awaken a deep interest; and the old man told me that the text was taken from Phil 3:13-14. “And what did he make of it?”, said I. The forester took great pains to make me comprehend, and I was not a little gratified by his native simplicity. “You see those shep,” said he (that is sheep); “now our minister made it out as this suppose I was running a race to that shep, and father was on this side, and mother on that side, and half a score more, and calling to me to stop; I should not mind what any of them said, but make for the shep, and talk to them when it was over.” This was evidently a simile of his own, and proved pretty plainly that he had got hold of his subject. Upon inquiring of the clergyman, I found that the poor fellow could neither read nor write, but that whenever the church doors were open, he was in his place, and appeared to prize the privilege of hearing; and added to this that he was a sober, honest, hard-working man.

“Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable; however, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.” — Chesterfield

“Perfection is the denying of our own will; the acknowledgment of our own vileness, constant resignation to the will of God, and unwearied love for our neighbour. In a word, it is that love which thinks of nothing, seeks nothing, desires nothing but God.” — John Arndt

“Sighs, groans, and tears proclaim his inward pains,

But the firm purpose of his heart remains.” — Dryden

You don’t have to look far to find cause for worry today. As jobs disappear, as our retirement plans shrivel, anxiety is knitting brows everywhere. Including, at times, my own.

Part of our worry comes from the fact that most Americans aren’t used to it! We’ve had relatively little to worry about in life. Sure, these are hard times, but this is not the Great Depression. And while the nightly news gives us cause to bemoan the loss of moral absolutes in society, Christians have always found themselves — and will always find themselves — living in the midst of a depraved culture.

But no matter how dark a place or an age in time, God has never allowed the light of the Church to be extinguished. Plagues, persecutions, poverty — Christians have lived victoriously in the midst of it all.

How? They had something we’ve lost: a Christian ethic of hope.

Sadly, people have either trivialized or politicized the word HOPE. The American Heritage Dictionary defines hope as “the feeling that ... events will turn out for the best.”

But a Christian hope isn’t a feeling. And it’s not wishful thinking. Hope comes from the CERTAINTY of God’s promises. These are promises like Romans 8:28 — ”God works in all things for the good of those who love him.” Promises like Acts 16:31 — ”Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” Promises abound for us about future realities. God has promised believers that Christ will come again, will redeem our bodies, will make us holy, will let us share in His glory, and will give us eternal life. This isn’t simple optimism. And it isn’t hope pinned to a fallible human leader. This is a firm hope in the Creator.

When we don’t have a secure hope, we worry excessively about the future. But when our hope is secure, we are free to live in the fruits of hope.

John Piper has identified four fruits of Christian hope. First, Christian hope bears the fruit of true joy. Unlike happiness, joy is not dependent upon circumstances. Second, Christian hope produces sacrificial love. When we aren’t obsessing over self-preservation, we are free to give ourselves to others. Next, Christian hope yields boldness. The hopeful Christian is realistic about the reality of the world’s problems, but it is also certain of God’s ultimate victory.

That’s why Christian hope has produced bold men and women who’ve given their lives to missionary service, or heroes like William Wilberforce who’ve been willing to sacrifice career, property or popularity for Christ.

Finally, Christian hope bears the fruit of endurance. When setbacks come — and they do — Christians who have their eyes fixed firmly on God’s promises can continue in the good fight. They can press on because they know that their actions aren’t in vain. Christ will have the ultimate victory.

Sure, these are tough times. But when we grab hold of the hope we have in Christ, we WILL be able to live with the joy, the sacrificial love, the boldness, and the endurance we will need to face the challenges before us.

And I’ll talk more about that on tomorrow’s broadcast.

________

Copyright (c) 2009 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing [I do], forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Php 3:13-14 NKJV)

Perseverance

• one thing — Ps 27:4, Mark 10:21, Luke 10:42 — those who succeed are usually men who mind one thing

• forgetting — not obliterating from memory, but ceasing to trust

• those…behind — the part of the race already run

• and…forth[forward] — as the racer his hand; so, the Christian his heart and desire

• mark[goal] — the goal

• prize…calling[call] — the crown of life — 1 Cor 9:24-25, 2 Tim 4:7-8, 1 Pet 5:10

The believer pressing forward — G. Dumont

I. An exposition of the words

1. Paul’s activity:

(1) The mark he proposes to himself — perfection

(2) The means he chooses — “reaching forth”

(3) The end-the duties and rewards of the Gospel.

2. The principle which inspires his activity — his assurance of obtaining the prize.

II. The truths and duties which they include:

1. Saints on earth, however good, have not yet attained perfection;

2. We should imitate Paul’s activity;

3. The care of advancing in godliness ought to be our principal business.

One thing I do — I was, some years ago, writes a clergyman, travelling through the Forest of Dean, on a visit to the clergyman of one of the new district churches. My gig had gone by the road, and I was making a short cut towards the parsonage, when I encountered a poor forester, with a bundle of sticks upon his shoulder. Feigning myself a stranger to the country, I pointed to the church in the distance, and asked what it was. “That,” said he, “is our new church;” and then he proceeded to say, that they had a faithful minister, and it was a happy day for the forest when the church was built. “Well, my friend, do you attend the church?” “Ay, sure,” replied the man. “Were you there yesterday?” “Yes, that I was.” “What was your minister preaching about?” This last question seemed to awaken a deep interest; and the old man told me that the text was taken from Phil 3:13-14. “And what did he make of it?”, said I. The forester took great pains to make me comprehend, and I was not a little gratified by his native simplicity. “You see those shep,” said he (that is sheep); “now our minister made it out as this suppose I was running a race to that shep, and father was on this side, and mother on that side, and half a score more, and calling to me to stop; I should not mind what any of them said, but make for the shep, and talk to them when it was over.” This was evidently a simile of his own, and proved pretty plainly that he had got hold of his subject. Upon inquiring of the clergyman, I found that the poor fellow could neither read nor write, but that whenever the church doors were open, he was in his place, and appeared to prize the privilege of hearing; and added to this that he was a sober, honest, hard-working man.

“Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable; however, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.” — Chesterfield

“Perfection is the denying of our own will; the acknowledgment of our own vileness, constant resignation to the will of God, and unwearied love for our neighbour. In a word, it is that love which thinks of nothing, seeks nothing, desires nothing but God.” — John Arndt

“Sighs, groans, and tears proclaim his inward pains,

But the firm purpose of his heart remains.” — Dryden