Episode 1568 For the Sake of the Joy

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,568 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Don Newman: I'm Don Newman. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling, having the ability to find the power of your message.

Prayer is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this The Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

Scott Maderer: From us because it comes from beyond. It comes from within. It comes from every action, thought and desire. If we keep them focused on fulfilling the purpose that Christ has called us to, [00:01:00] and that. That is what it means to be part of the community of Christ. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Hebrews chapter 11 verses 29 through chapter 12, verse two. I talk about how we are all called to community to found salvation and joy. And I also talk about how it's not a. All about us are our perfection, but rather about [00:02:00] Jesus. Hebrews chapter 11 verses 29 through chapter 12.

Verse two says, by faith, the people passed through the Red Sea as if they were dry land. But when the Egyptians attempted to do they were drowned by faith. The walls of Jericho fell after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab, the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient because she had received the spies in peace.

And what more should I say for time would fail me to tell of Gideon Barack Sampson, Giah, or DA of David and Samuel and of the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises shut the mouths of lions, quenched the powers of fire, escape. The edge of the sword were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war.

Put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release in order to obtain a better resurrection. [00:03:00] Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death. They were sawn in two. They were killed by the sword.

They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and in holes of the ground. And yet all of these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised since God had provided something better so that they would not apart from us, be made perfect.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so close closely and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us. Looking for Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who, for the sake of the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, disregarding its shame and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

When I was a school [00:04:00] teacher, I can remember going into the teacher's lounge and overhearing one teacher say to the other, this job would be better if it wasn't for all these kids. I've heard it and I've said it myself sometimes, where, this job would be great if it wasn't for all these people, and you've probably heard people say that or said that yourself.

It reminds me of that idea that everyone is crazy, but me and the, and I'm not so sure about the. After all, we say things like people can't live with them, can't live without them. There's all sorts of expressions that we use. Just pointing out the fact that people often get under our skin, they get on our nerves.

Sometimes it's just some people. Sometimes it's every person depends on you and what's going on and how you feel. And in this passage from Hebrews, it begins to talk about. This communion of saints that came before and [00:05:00] in the abstract, that always sounds a lot better than sometimes it actually plays out in the concrete real world.

The reality is people, all sorts of people, even saintly people, even other Christians, can sometimes be hard to take. Someone told me one time, one of my clients who was of a different faith background themselves, and we'd worked together for several years and towards the end of it, he looked at me one day and he said, Scott, I wanna pay you a compliment and I'm not sure you're gonna take it as a compliment.

And I said, go for it. What is it? And he said, you're Christian, but you're not annoying about it. I took it as a compliment 'cause I knew what he meant. Honestly, I'm annoyed by people and other Christians and all sorts of things all the time, and yet we're encouraged. In fact, we're required by faith to live in community, to live in relationship.

Relationship by definition [00:06:00] takes other people. Community by definition means other people. Communion and community come from the same root on purpose. You can't be in relationship all by yourself. There's no such thing as a community of one. And yet this text emphasizes. The Communion of Saints, not the same way we do it at All Saints Sunday, but this theme, this idea, shows up in this passage and towards the end it, there's a statement at the end of the text about the joy set before Jesus.

But to understand what that end of this passage means, we have to look up above and look at what comes before it. Look at the passages that come before and how they're naming this great cloud of witnesses that has come before. [00:07:00] So if the truth is we're stuck with relationship, we're stuck with community, we're stuck with other people we might as well learn how to enjoy it.

We might as well lean into it and recognize that people, all sorts of people are endlessly fascinating if we just take the time to explore. I love people watching. I've gone to several sporting events and I'm not a big sports follower. I don't even really know the rules of a lot of the games that I've gone to, but I go to 'em to sit in the crowd and watch other people.

I, I'll go to the mall and sit in the food court to watch other people. It's fascinating to talk to and engage with and talk and find out about other people. The truth is our salvation is wrapped up in those around us. At least that's what this passage from Hebrews is trying to make us understand. All the way back at the beginning of chapter 11, it says, [00:08:00] now faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen.

We talked about that a few. Messages ago. And that's a brief, powerful, wonderful description of faith. But then from there it goes into a whole chapter of people. It's as if it's saying, the real way to understand faith is to look at the lives of the people around us. Yes, these people are heroes of faith that are named in this passage, but when you get down to the end, we discover that there are so many that they just simply run out of names.

Think about it in your life, in the people around you, there's stories of suffering. There's stories of triumph, there's stories of pain and peace. And when we listen closely and think deeply, we realize that those same stories that are in the Bible are stories about people, that we know, people around us, people like us, [00:09:00] and we can be encouraged by the faith we find there.

And lifted up and given a sense of hope and promise for the future. But the writer also says that this journey is done but not complete. There's still the waiting for fulfillment. They are waiting for the rest of us. They're waiting for the rest of the cloud of witnesses that have gone before us to run our own race.

They wait for us to complete our own journey. And they aren't done, at least not in this passage. And if you think about it, all of these Old Testament figures these figures couldn't be complete until Christ came. But by the time we're reading this passage in Hebrews, Christ has already come.

So shouldn't it be done now? But that's not what it's talking about. In fact, maybe it's suggesting that none of us [00:10:00] are ever complete until all of us are complete. Maybe we're supposed to recognize that our salvation is not a personal issue. It's not all about us. Our faith is not a private matter. Maybe we're supposed to understand that we are by the very nature of our faith, a community, we.

Are those communion of saints that we talk about. It recognize saint here doesn't mean some sort of halo wearing holier than thou perfect acting human being. It's simply someone that has said yes to Jesus. That's it. That's the key criteria. If you think about that, then you know how fallible saints can be, how incomplete saints can be, how needy saints can be, all of us, because we are them.

If we are the saints and we have trouble walking the walk and [00:11:00] talking the talk and wearing a halo and feeling like we're not just an imposter, then that's part of the journey. The Communion of Saints here is a cheering section that is encouraging us forward while we lay aside the weight of sin that drags us down and run the race that th is now set before us.

But it's not really about us, it's about Jesus. We're looking to Jesus. That's the goal. That's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to keep our eyes on Christ. It's about our effort and our lives, both solo and in community, in our hearts, in our hands, and our soul, and our spirit in our mouth, and our words, in our deeds that each day we're trying to model and become a little bit more like Jesus.

Jesus is that measure. [00:12:00] It. It's not just about us because as good as we can be, our love is feeble at best compared to the depth and power of his love. If you start to get full of yourself, if I start to get full of myself, and let's face it, I don't know about you, but I do that way too often. And then we look to Jesus, that reminds me of how far yet I have to go.

As soon as I begin to fade and look at that and recognize how far from the goal I am and how I'm incapable of reaching it. But Jesus is standing there with an invitation and encouragement and a hand held out saying, keep going. That's the joy that we can see. That's the joy that Jesus lives every single day, and that's the joy we are called to knowing who we are and who we're [00:13:00] belong to, and who we're supposed to be and become that no matter what our purposes is or is not, our value cannot be taken from us because it comes from beyond.

It comes from within. It comes from. Every action, thought and desire if we keep them focused on fulfilling the purpose that Christ has called us to, and that is what it means to be part of the community of Christ. Thanks for listening.

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