up, wake up our hearts, and, um, just enjoy
being together.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a
foretaste of glory divine. Heir of salvation,
purchase of God, Lord of His Spirit, washed in
His blood. This is my story, this is my
song, praising my Savior all the day long. This
is my story, this is my song, praising
my Savior all the day long. My hope is built on
nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly
lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. His oath
is covered in His blood, sorrows me in the
whelming flood. When all around my soul gives
way, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ
the solid rock I stand, all other ground is
sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand.
Let's all stand. All hail the power
of Jesus' name, let angels prostrate fall.
Bring forth the royal diadem and crown Him,
Lord of all. Bring forth the royal diadem and
crown Him, Lord of all. That with yonder
sacred throng we at His feet may fall. We'll
join the everlasting song and praise Him, Lord
of all. We'll join the everlasting song and
praise Him, Lord of all. My Jesus, my Savior,
Lord there is none like You. All of my days I
want to praise the wonders of Your mighty
love. My comfort, my shelter, tower of refuge
and strength, let every breath, all that I
am, never cease to worship You. Shout to the
Lord, all the earth, let us sing. Power
and Majesty, praise to the King. Mountains bow
down and the seas will roar at the sound
of Your name. I sing for joy at the work of
Your hands. Forever I'll love You, forever
nothing compares to the promise I have in You.
My Jesus, my Savior, Lord there is none
like You. All of my days I want to praise the
wonders of Your mighty love. You're my
comfort, you're my shelter, you're my tower of
refuge and strength. Let every breath,
all that I am, never cease to worship You.
Shout to the Lord, all the earth, let us sing.
Power and Majesty, praise to the King.
Mountains bow down and the seas will roar at
the sound
of Your name. I sing for joy at the work of
Your hands. Forever I'll love You, forever
I'll stand. Nothing compares to the promise I
have in You. Nothing compares to the promise
I have in You. Please be seated.
How about here? Good. Will it sound as good if
I try singing bass with it? Not so much.
Oh, it's a tenor mic. Okay. Can't sing bass
with this one. Okay. Well, I never really
thought I
would miss Highland's video sound system, but
apparently we do today and they're still working
on it, but we're going to, we know how to call
audibles here at the line of scrimmage, so
we'll have a great morning. We are on a
journey, my dear friends. We're on a journey. I
have no
interest in being a museum curator, do you? I
don't want to do that. I appreciate what's
in the museum. It's part of my story, but I
don't just want to be the museum curator.
I want to be somebody who is out there on the
journey, and I don't want to be a sports
journalist, by the way. I don't just want to be
the one who describes what other people are doing.
I want to be somebody out on the track, someone
out on the court, somebody on the field,
in the role of discipleship. Mike Yacconelli
recently was tragically killed in a car wreck,
but before he died, he wrote about a kid that
he had seen, a kid from Little League Baseball,
which is my field of expertise, I guess, if I
have any. It's not really Bible. It's
Little League Baseball after years. We getting
close? We think we're getting there. All right.
We're there. Check it out. Okay. Put the songs
back in. Quit stalling. All right.
All these years of coaching Little League
Baseball, and Yacconelli tells about a kid he saw
in the city championship for nine and
10-year-old kids. It was the worst case
scenario for a Little
League kid, but before that, before
championship, nobody really cares who wins so
much. The parents
care. The coaches care. The kids, they're okay
either way. Summer before last, my Little League
team won the first game 18-1. One of my kids
was jumping up and down in excitement right next
to me, and then he stopped and said, hey,
coach, who won? And I thought, well, that's why
you coach
at that age. They don't care as long as there's
snacks at the end of the game. But in the
championship, everything's very serious, and he
watched this kid, bottom of the last inning,
team at bat, one run down, bases loaded, two
outs. It's the kind of thing you dread as a parent.
Carl walked up to the plate. His parents are up
there, both sets of grandparents, three sets of
uncles and aunts, everybody cheering him on.
Come on, Carl! First pitch game, strike one,
but nobody, nobody gives up hope. They're all
cheering on Carl. The next pitch comes, strike two.
Both dugouts, nearly delirious. The next pitch
comes, Carl strikes out. The game is over.
One dugout is jumping up, down. They know
they've won. They're going on to the district
tournament. The other team is sad. They're
sacking the stuff up. They're throwing their
gloves in the bags. Everybody's heading back to
their cars, and Yacconelli writes, except for cars,
Carl was standing at the plate, devastated,
alone, his head down in disgrace.
Suddenly, someone yelled, okay, Carl, play ball!
Startled, Carl looked up to see his family spread
out over the field. Grandpa was pitching, dad
was catching the ball, and the other team was
at the field. Grandpa was pitching, dad was
catching, mom was at first base, uncle David
was at second,
and the rest of the family had covered the
other positions. Come on, Carl, pick up the bat.
Grandpa's pitching.
Bewildered, Carl slowly picked up the bat and
swung at Grandpa's first pitch. He missed, and he
missed the next six pitches as well, but on the
seventh pitch, determined to get a hit, Carl smacked
the ball to left field. His aunt ran, picked up
the ball, and threw it to first base in plenty
of time,
but the first baseman, mom, must have lost the
ball in the sun, because it went right through
her hands into the dugout. Run, Carl! Everyone
yelled. As Carl was running to second, the first
baseman recovered the ball and threw it.
Amazingly, uncle David was blinded by the same
sun from a
different direction. Keep running, yelled
someone, and Carl headed for third. When the
throw went at
least two feet over the head of the third
baseman, they yelled, keep running, Carl, and
Carl raced
for home, running as hard as he had ever run.
The ball was thrown with deadly accuracy as the catcher,
blocking home plate, waited to tag him out, but
just as Carl reached home plate, the ball bounced
in and out of the catcher's mitt, and Carl was
safe. Before he knew what happened, Carl found himself
being carried around on uncle David's
shoulders, while the rest of the family crowded around,
cheering Carl's name. One person who was
watching this amazing event commented to a friend,
I think we just witnessed a little boy fall
victim to a conspiracy of grace.
Let's pray, and then we'll sing again. Oh God,
we have fallen victim to a conspiracy of grace,
and it's put us right plop in the middle of
this field, running, moving, and I pray that today
you'll help us understand the sense in which
we're not just journalists describing other
people's journeys, and we're not curators
showing artifacts from the past, but we are
people with
sweat on our faces, and muscles rippling,
hearts pumping, eyes focused, and a destination
in view.
And we give you thanks for that, the joy of the
journey, in the name of Christ we pray. Amen.
Great, now let's stand and sing, and I think
we'll have some lyrics this time.
Your light broke through my night, restored
exceeding joy. Your grace
fell like the rain, and made this desert live.
You have turned my morning into dancing.
You have turned my sorrow into joy. You have
turned my morning into dancing.
You have turned my sun to joy. Your hand lifted
me up, I stand on higher ground.
Your grace rose in my heart, and made this
valley sing. You have turned my morning into dancing.
You have turned my sorrow into joy. You have
turned my morning into dancing.
You have turned my sorrow into joy. This is how
we overcome.
This is how we overcome.
This is how we overcome. You have turned my
morning into dancing.
This is how we overcome. You have turned my
sorrow into joy.
You have turned my morning into dancing. This
is how we overcome.
You have turned my sorrow into joy. This is how
we overcome.
There's nowhere else that I'd rather be than
dancing with you as you sing over me.
There's nothing else that I'd rather do, Lord,
than to worship you.
So rejoice, be glad, rejoice, O my soul, for
the Lord your God,
He reigns forevermore. I rejoice, for my God reigns.
So rejoice, be glad, your Father and your
Friend is the Lord your God,
whose rule will never end. I rejoice, for my
God reigns.
My God reigns in our dance, the dance of praise.
My God reigns with a shout I will proclaim.
My God reigns, and I worship without shame.
My God reigns, and I will rejoice, for my God reigns.
Yes, I will rejoice, for my God reigns.
Blessing and honor, glory and power, be unto
the ancient of days.
From every nation, all of creation, bow before
the ancient of days.
Every tongue in Heaven and earth shall declare
your glory, every knee shall bow at your throne.
In worship you will be exalted, O God, and your
kingdom shall not pass away, O ancient of days.
Blessing and honor, glory and power, be unto
the ancient of days.
From every nation, all of creation, bow before
the ancient of days.
Every tongue in Heaven and earth shall declare
your glory, every knee shall bow at your throne.
In worship you will be exalted, O God, and your
kingdom shall not pass away, O ancient of days.
Your kingdom shall reign over all the earth,
singing to the ancient of days.
For none can compare to your matchless worth,
singing to the ancient of days.
Every tongue in Heaven and earth shall declare
your glory, every knee shall bow at your throne.
In worship you will be exalted, O God, and your
kingdom shall not pass away, O ancient of days.
O ancient of days.
Holy God and Father, ancient of days we come
before you this morning
in praise and adoration for all that you have
done in our lives.
Every step of the way on this journey, Lord,
you have whispered your love in our ear.
You have guided us with your staff and your rod.
You've been our protector and our defender.
You've been our Abba Father.
And so we come this morning to worship you,
Lord, for you are worthy.
Whether our mouths utter these truths or not,
you are worthy.
Bless your holy name, Lord.
Light of the World, you step down into darkness.
Open my eyes, let me see.
Beauty that made this heart adore you. Hope of
a life spent with you.
Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down.
Here I am to say that you're my God.
You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy,
altogether wonderful to me.
King of all days, all so highly exalted.
Glorious in Heaven above.
Humbly you came to the earth you created. All
for our sake became poor.
Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down.
Here I am to say that you're my God.
You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy,
altogether wonderful to me.
Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down.
Here I am to say that you're my God.
You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy,
altogether wonderful to me.
Beauty that made this heart adore you. Hope of
a life spent with you.
We fall down. We lay our crowns at the feet of Jesus.
The greatness of mercy and love at the feet of
Jesus. We cry holy, holy, holy.
We cry holy, holy, holy.
We cry holy, holy, holy is the land. I will
never be the same again.
I can never return. I've closed the door. I
will walk the path. I'll run the race.
And I will never be the same again. Fall like
fire, soak like rain. Flow like mighty waters
again and again.
Sweep away the darkness. Burn away the chaff.
And let a flame burn to glorify your name.
There are higher heights. There are deeper seas.
Whatever you need to do, Lord, do it in me.
The glory of God fills my life. And I will
never be the same again.
Fall like fire, soak like rain. Flow like
mighty waters again and again. Sweep away the darkness.
Burn away the chaff. And let a flame burn to
glorify your name. I will never be the same again.
I can never return. I've closed the door. I
will walk the path. I'll run the race.
And I will never be the same again. No, I will
never be the same again.
I wrote this image of sacred journey around
four images, the hiker, the explorer, the sojourner,
which we'll look at tomorrow, those, and the
one that seems so dominant to me, maybe because
I am a runner, but running.
In Hebrews, we found out yesterday that Jesus
is the Prodromos, which means he's the first
runner in the race.
And then in chapter 12, the Hebrews writer
says, surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,
let's throw off everything that hinders and the
sin that so easily entangles, and let us run
with perseverance,
the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes
on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith,
who for the joy before him endured the cross,
scorning at shame, and sat down at the right
hand of the throne of God.
Luke records Paul's farewell speech to the
elders of the church in Ephesus in Acts 20.
He goes to Miletus, and he speaks to them and
says, I consider my life worth nothing to me.
If only I may finish the race and complete the
task the Lord Jesus has given me,
the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.
Maybe the most extended passage is 1
Corinthians 9, where Paul, in addition to
saying that he buffets his body,
would say, I am running this race, and not
everyone receives the crown, but I'm running so
that I can receive that crown.
In 2 Timothy 4 and verse 7, he says, I have
fought the fight, I finished the race, and I've
kept the faith.
Well, as people who are running on this
journey, it means that these are the parts of
the journey.
First of all, he speaks about the training.
We're training along the way, as you have to
with any competition.
I've run a bunch of marathons in the last 13
years since being here in Abilene,
and it means lots and lots, thousands and
thousands of miles early in the morning before
anybody's awake.
On the days that I have the long runs, I try to
start about 4 in the morning,
because I found out that I get about 18 of the
miles behind me before I actually wake up,
and it's a wonderful way to do it.
Not as much traffic either, plus I'm a morning person.
And Paul said, everyone who competes goes into
strict training.
It's just 5 days and 20 hours until my beloved
Texas Rangers begin their spring training to
get ready for the real season.
It takes hard work to defend last place as many
years as they've been in it.
But they're in it right now, the pitchers
warming up their arms, strengthening the arms,
lifting weights, running sprints, infielders
taking grounder after grounder after grounder,
throw to first to throw to first, outfielders
taking fly ball after fly ball,
over and over and over again, because you've
got to train in order to compete.
John Eldridge writes about a story that helped
his life.
He said when he was young, he read about a
Scottish discus thrower, 19th century,
who read a book about discus and decided he
would make one.
So he read about the dimensions.
What he didn't realize was that a discus is
only iron on the outside rim.
It's wood on the inside.
He didn't realize that.
So he made it the right dimension, but he made
it all iron.
And he trained, he had read what the world
record was, so he trained day after day,
throwing that discus that was three or four
times heavier than a normal one,
throwing and throwing and throwing until he
thought, well, I'm not there, but maybe I can compete.
He traveled south to England.
He joined the discus competition.
Everybody lined up, they threw theirs.
He stepped up and threw it far beyond what
anyone else had ever thrown it for a world record.
And Eldridge writes, something in my heart
connected with this story.
So that's how you do it.
Train under a great burden and you will be so
far beyond the rest of the world that you will
be untouchable.
Dallas Willard writes about it a lot.
He says the problem with the WWJD is not that
we want to do what Jesus did.
That's a great thing.
The problem is we think that Jesus just woke up
every morning and went out and made good decisions.
When in fact Jesus lived a life of training, he
was a disciplined person.
He lived a life of prayer.
He lived a life of the Spirit.
He lived a life of meditation.
He lived a life of Scripture.
When called upon in temptation, he knew the
words of Scripture.
And Dallas Willard is...
Here today.
Glad you guys are here.
I couldn't do what they do.
I couldn't sing like they sing for sure.
But if I trained, I could get better and
couldn't sing like they do.
And as an actor, I can only imagine if I got up
here and tried to act.
Adam Hester is always gigging me a little,
trying to get me up here just to see.
But he knows what I know.
I'm not an actor.
But I could work on it and probably get better.
And many of you know Jack and Jill Maxwell.
They travel to the Zoe conferences with us.
And usually at the Zoe conferences while I'm
speaking, they're up here drawing.
And it's unbelievable.
If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about.
The way they begin with a blank sheet and then
put on that sheet an image of what we're
talking about.
There's no way in the world I could ever be as
good as Jack and Jill Maxwell.
I'm the worst partner to have in Pictionary.
My frog, my jellyfish, my horse, all animals
look exactly alike, which is problematic.
Every human being, by the way, looks the same too.
But if I practiced and they showed me some
tricks of the trade, I could get better.
And on and on it goes.
You're thinking of things you can't do very well.
You've seen somebody that can play an
instrument and you think, boy, I wish I could
do that.
Well, you could, perhaps not like they do.
But you could if you took lessons.
You could play the piano.
You could play the guitar.
You could play the flute.
If you took lessons and worked at it, like so
many things, spiritual disciplines are a way
that I say,
I am on a journey.
It's not just that I was baptized into Jesus
and now I'm treading water until the great day
that the Lord returns or I die.
No, I'm in constant training.
A life of prayer.
For some of us, a life of journaling, a way to
put prayers down on paper.
A life of community and sacrifice and silence
that get us ready to live and make those decisions.
Also on the journey, the second thing is the crowd.
The Hebrew writer speaks about it and says
we're surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses.
That's one of the best parts of running races,
at least the big races.
At the Boston Marathon, there are people all
along the way from start in Hopkinson to the
finish in downtown Boston.
But the highlight of the course is almost
halfway at Wellesley College.
It's an all-girls college.
That's what they call it.
An all-girls college.
And they have this long tradition that on the
day of the race, all of the women of Wellesley
line the course for about half a mile.
And when you're running it, you can hear it
from about a mile away.
You hear this dim roar.
And the closer you get, the more the roar builds.
You get there.
It's like your feet are not even touching the ground.
The first time I ran it, I was running by a guy
who was so excited he didn't know me.
He just turned and said, isn't this great?
He said, last year I looped around and did it again.
It's been proven it's the fastest mile of the
Boston Marathon for men.
All along that mile with all of these women
lining and screaming and cheering.
In the New York City Marathon, in some ways
it's even better, there are two million people
lining the course.
Can you imagine that?
Two million people are actually along the
course for the 26 miles.
In fact, when you cross the Queensboro Bridge
into Manhattan, right along that strip of about
a mile right there,
there are a million people.
Can you imagine what that sounds like?
In the year I ran it, there were 20 bands along
the way.
Just local bands got together and brought all
their instruments out there playing Rocky or
something inspiring along the way.
There were old women holding orange slices all
along the way.
Little kids with bits of candy.
Firemen with hoses going in case you were too hot.
People cheering all along the way.
As you go through different neighborhoods, you
never see the Hispanic, the Polish, Irish,
Hasidic, Jewish,
every different neighborhood in places that no
taxi driver would ever take you in New York City.
Well, this cloud of witnesses in chapter 11 is
made up of people who are not plump.
These are not idle spectators.
The first or second, I guess the first time I
ran the Boston Marathon, I got right to the top
of Heartbreak Hill,
which is really a series of little hills, and
together they're like a big hill.
I thought I was going to die, came up to a
water table, and I run without my glasses by
the way,
I came up to a water table, and a woman handed
me some water,
and it was not a woman who appeared to be ready
to run a marathon, she handed me some water,
and she had on a t-shirt that said, I ran in
the 1992 Boston Marathon.
Well, that made me mad. This was the 1992
Boston Marathon, and she had clearly not run in it.
And I thought, when I finish, I'm going to make
a t-shirt that says, I gave birth to five children.
But I got closer, and I realized in big letters
it said, I ran in the 1992 Boston Marathon.
There were some little letters, though it said,
I ran a water station in the 1992 Boston Marathon.
Well, the people that he talks about here,
these are not the folks that are just handing
you water,
who've never been in the race.
This should be more like all the Kenyans who
finished three hours ago,
coming back around and handing you water, and
saying, and Swahili finished the race.
Many of us have known the story of Ruby Bridges
for a long time.
I've told this story for ages, and you've heard
it, and other places have read about it.
Little girl, black girl, in New Orleans, the
first student to go to what had previously been
an all-white school.
The court said it had to be integrated.
And on the day Ruby Bridges went to that
school, every, I mean, 100% of the parents of
the white children
took their children out of school for the whole year.
For one full year, she attended an elementary
school as the only child.
Every day in New Orleans, Ruby Bridges walked
to her school with hundreds, and in the beginning,
thousands of adult white people telling her
they were going to kill her.
Telling her they'd find her mom and dad and
kill them.
They'd kill her siblings, screaming horrible
things at her.
Every day, she walked to school to be a student
of one with white people telling her they'd
kill her.
She had to be escorted by marshals with rifles.
And every day, we know about this because Dr.
Robert Coles, a famous shrink now,
has told us that he was assigned by the
military to be the one to keep an eye on her.
So he watched because the teacher, her teacher
said watch out the window
because every day she would stop right on the
corner with all these people screaming at her.
She'd stop on the corner and she'd say something.
Finally, one day, Dr. Coles said, Ruby, what
are you saying to the people?
She said, I'm not saying anything.
He said, Ruby, I'm looking out the window with
your teacher.
Don't lie to us. We see you standing out there
speaking to the people.
She said, no, Sir, I'm not speaking to the people.
He said, well, honey, your mouth's moving.
You're saying something.
She said, oh, I am saying something. I'm not
speaking to the people.
Well, who are you speaking to? She said, I'm
talking to God.
He said, you're talking to God? What are you
telling God?
She said, I just stand there and I say, dear
God, please forgive these people
because they don't know what they're doing.
And he says, even at the time as an unbeliever,
those words sounded familiar to me.
Well, I've known that part of the story for a
long time, but just recently,
their book of essays came out on children at
risk, and Robert Coles had one of them,
and he told more of the story.
He said, I finally figured out how she could do
that, six years old,
with people threatening to kill her, and she
could stop and say, dear God, please forgive them.
They don't know what they're doing for a full year.
He said, I finally found out when I went to
church with Ruby and her family,
and he said, it wasn't like the white churches
I'd been to
where you got out in an hour and you went to eat.
He said, this was a hard praying, hard
preaching, hard worshiping church.
No air conditioning. You just came and you stayed.
And he said, it was there that I found out how
Ruby could do that,
because to her, the stories of Isaiah and
Jeremiah and Daniel and Esther
were as real as any story in her life.
The story of Jesus is a story that was embedded
in her.
It wasn't just something back there. That's who
she was. These are her people.
She lives in the family of Isaiah and of Jeremiah.
She was there in her mind when Abraham took
Isaac to the altar.
She was there when Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego said, he'll deliver us,
but even if he doesn't, he's still God and will
follow him.
She was there when Esther said, if I perish, I perish.
She was there for all of those moments. These
are her family,
and they are cheering her on.
Well, I don't want to get too carried away with
Lord of the Rings in here,
because I am a fanatic with my boys.
But in the second movie, if you've seen it, you
know that
Frodo's tempted to give up. He's ready to throw
in the towel.
It's too hard, too discouraging, too tempting.
The ring is having, is wearing on him,
and he and Sam are eating what may be their
last meal before
he can go down into the nameless land.
And just as he's ready to quit, Sam Gamgee, who
I think is kind of the hero of the story,
reminds him that all good stories come with challenges.
But we remember them because the people made
the choice to keep going,
and Sam says, and we wouldn't be here at all,
Mr. Frodo,
if we'd known more about it before we started.
But that's how it often is. The brave things
and the old tales and old songs,
I used to think that they were things the
wonderful folk of the stories went out
and looked for, because they wanted them,
because they were exciting,
and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, as
you might say.
But that's not the way of it with the tales
that really matter,
the ones that stay in the mind.
Folks seem to have been just landed in them, usually.
Their paths were laid that way, as you put it.
But I expect they had lots of chances, like us,
of turning back.
Only they didn't.
And if they had, we wouldn't know, because
they'd have been forgotten.
We hear about those that went on, and not at
all to a good end, mind you,
at least not to what folk inside a story and
not outside it call a good end.
In other words, he says, remember all of the
stories we've known?
We know the stories because they kept going.
Those are the people witnessing to us.
If they hadn't kept going, we wouldn't know the stories.
These people that made it in the Scripture part
of them,
at least made it because they kept going, and
they are witnesses to us.
And now they form this path that I talked about yesterday.
All of these people, all of these names that
are out there,
these names that are mentioned in Hebrews 11,
like Samson, and Jephth, and David, and Samuel,
and the prophets, and Rahab,
and other names that I could mention of people
I've known at Highland,
whose funerals I've done, like Bert, and Maude,
and Dan, and Glen, and Ed,
and David, and Megan, and John, and Jack, and
Don, and Amy, and Buster,
and Nita, and Judd.
And on and on the list goes.
Not just the people of Hebrews 11,
but the people who were there have become like
strands in the cord.
Some of you heard me talk about it at Highland Sunday.
The cord that is there, that rope that comes
down that we hold on to,
made up of strands of faith, the people who
made those choices,
they are the cloud of witnesses.
In the distance I hear my grandma Cope cheering
me on.
I hear my daughter cheering me on.
I hear my nephew cheering me on.
I hear David, and the prophets, and Esther, and Moses,
and all of these people cheering to keep going.
In our culture we're taught to trust your instincts,
or trust your education, or trust your feelings,
or trust your heart, for goodness sakes,
as if you're Luke Skywalker going in for the kill.
And the Bible is pleading with you, hey, don't
trust your instincts.
Your instincts stink. Instincts.
Don't trust your instincts. Trust the path.
That's at least the voice of wisdom literature.
There's a path. Follow the path.
The people that followed Christ on this way,
look at the path and followed it.
That's why we've got to keep thinking of ways
to bring the generations together.
The best thing we can do for our kids is not to
separate them,
but to put them with grandmas and grandpas and
uncles and aunts in the faith,
and let them see that there is a path.
In this race also there is endurance that he
speaks about. Endurance.
I love the story of Beth Ann DeCiantis,
who was trying to run a sub two hour 45 minute marathon
so she could qualify for the U.S. Women's
Olympic team.
So she's in her qualifying race.
She led the race from the very beginning, and
through 20 miles,
keep in mind she's trying to average under two
hours 45 minutes.
For 20 miles she's averaging two hours 40
minutes, so she's well ahead of pace.
But at 23 miles she began to slow,
and she saw a friend and said, it's not going
to happen.
She could just tell her body was revolting.
With 200 meters to go, the clock said two hours
43 minutes, but she collapsed.
There was tingling in her knees and dizziness.
She stumbled, she fell, she cut her knees,
and she stayed down for 20 seconds with the
crowd chanting for her to get up
and to keep going, so she did.
She popped up and she started walking, and then
she started jogging,
and she fell again with five yards to go.
People still cheering at her to finish.
And at that moment she got up and she crawled
five yards.
Somebody snap this picture.
She crawled the last five yards, reached up,
and slapped the ribbon at two hours
44 minutes and 57 seconds, and she finished.
The great need in this race is to finish, to
keep going.
It's not a sprint, it's a marathon.
Run with endurance, Scripture says.
Finish this race.
As a Texan here, I've always loved watching
Emmet run, missing on the Cowboys,
but it was a great moment in October 2002 when
he broke Walter Payton's all-time record
of 16,726 yards.
He did it against the Seattle Seahawks while
his daughter was holding up a sign
that said, Run, Daddy, Run.
Emmet has run for over nine and a half miles on
a football field.
And the amazing thing is, every inch of the
way, some large beefy person has tried to kill him.
And when you think about it, nine and a half
miles, every 4.3 yards, they did.
£900 of beef would be on top of him every 4.3 yards.
And he kept going nine and a half miles.
He's doing it again and again and again.
Finish the race. Endure.
Keep going.
Don't get tired.
It happens sometimes in the early years that we
burst out of the waters of baptism excited.
But then the years of college get a little hard
and we get bored or we get tempted.
Or sometimes it happens in the building years
when we start to have children
and we see our other friends and everything's
focused on being upwardly mobile
and finding the better house and we set the
journey aside for a while and we do that.
Or sometimes in the middle years where losses
begin to come and you see your parents age
and you just get tired and realize life's not
as great as you'd hoped it would be.
Or sometimes even in the later years when you
just think nobody needs you anymore.
It could come anywhere along the way.
And that's the genius of 1 John where John says
to all the different people,
you hang in there, you be strong, you are courageous.
Everybody hold on to this race and endure.
And another part of the image is that there is
a finish line.
In the Boston Marathon it's the John Hancock building.
You can see it a long time before you reach it,
but you keep your eyes on it.
When you think you can't go, you just keep
watching the John Hancock building.
Your finish line may look like this or it may
look like this.
For a lot of us it looks like this.
Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness.
Last year I went on another, my fourth trip to
Uganda to Africa.
When I got back I wrote this little piece and
it will take me a while to read,
but I'm skipping the big middle here.
It's a long trip.
And like most long trips of mine it all begins
with American Eagle.
From Abilene International Airport to DFW to
Chicago to London
and then to Entebbe Airport in Uganda,
site of the famous raid on Entebbe by the Israelis.
From there it was a hot two-hour drive to
Jinja, known as the source of the Nile.
Since there where the waters of Lake Victoria
dump out, the Nile begins.
On Saturday, with my eyes crossed from jet lag,
I went to a graduation ceremony for the Basoga
Bible School,
a small school begun by the Jinja team a few
years ago to train Ugandans
they'd converted from the village churches to
be leaders and teachers in those churches.
It's an attempt to make sure the churches don't
remain dependent on American missionaries.
They want the 55 churches they've planted to
flourish long after they're gone.
This was the second graduation, nine men and
one woman who were to be commissioned for ministry.
It was a festive event with a large crowd
gathered of friends and family members
who had proudly made the difficult trip to
Jinja to witness a graduation.
As I was handed a sheet that was hot off the
presses with the order of the ceremony,
I was interested to learn that I apparently was
the special commencement speaker.
The day before one of the Ugandan leaders had
asked me if I would say a few words.
I didn't realize that meant I was the speaker.
A few minutes later someone threw a graduation
gown over me,
just what I needed with 90 degree weather and
no air movement,
and popped a graduation cap on my head.
I opened my Bible to 1 Thessalonians 2 and with
the help of a translator proceeded to commission.
And then the long middle I cut out about
traveling on the AIDS highway to retreat.
At times this trip was hot and dusty.
At other times it was cooler and more beautiful.
But no matter where we were on the journey, I
thought of home as I always do.
In fact, my Casio watch I took allows me to set
two times,
so I always keep the local time where I am and
Abilene time.
That way I could remember what my family was
doing all through the day.
And as much as I enjoyed being there and
getting to feed the missionaries spiritually,
I counted down the days until we returned.
Finally, Wednesday night came.
My last teaching session was over.
We blessed all the new missionaries in the
three countries,
and we blessed all those who were returning to
the U.S.A.,
and I went to bed excited about the next morning.
I was up early, dressed, packed, and ready.
And then we began unwinding the journey back
across Kenya, back across the border,
back to Ginger, back to Kampala, then to the
Entebbe airport,
then there was the long, tiring British air
flight to London,
linking to the long American Airlines flight to JFK.
But the more weary I got, the more excited I
got, for I was coming home.
Home to the beautiful blonde I've loved for a
quarter century.
Home to my boys. Home to Highland.
Home to 2401, Adam Avenue.
Finally, yesterday afternoon, my American Eagle
flight touched down on Abilene soil.
I thought back to those college girls who were
on my flight last year as I came back from Africa.
Coming home for the first time from college,
they broke out into song,
Abilene, Abilene, prettiest town I've ever seen.
Folks won't treat you mean, and Abilene, my Abilene.
A song that came from the drug culture of the 1960s.
There's an old saying that many Christians are
so heavenly minded that they're of no earthly use.
But as Aleister McGrath has written,
allowing our hearts and minds to dwell on our
future destiny is essential
if we're going to gain the right perspective on
what we are and keep us going.
Our brothers and sisters knew they were aliens
and strangers here in this world,
that their citizenship was in Heaven,
that the true destination, the final
consummation, the real home is Heaven.
And so no wonder so many of our old songs spoke
of Heaven as home.
Oh, they tell me of a home far beyond the skies.
Oh, they tell me of a home far away.
Home of the soul, beautiful home, there we
shall rest, never to roam.
Oh, for a home with God, a place in His courts
to rest,
sure in a safe abode with Jesus and the blessed,
rest for a weary soul once redeemed by the
Savior's love,
where I'll be pure and whole and live with my
God above.
Some glad morning when this life is o'er,
I'll fly away to a home on God's celestial shore.
I'll fly away.
In Dante's Divine Comedy, he journeys from
inferno to purgatory
and then on to Paradise.
And the journey ends with a vision of God in Heaven,
where Dante stares fixed and motionless upon
that vision.
And I can only imagine what it'll be like.
Will we dance or in awe be still? I can only imagine.
Will I immediately see my daughter and embrace her
turning next to get a big bear hug from my nephew?
Or will the vision of the one on the throne be
so overwhelming
that I don't even notice others at first?
I can only imagine.
But this I know, that we must keep our final
destination in sight.
For the sake of endurance, for the sake of holiness,
for the sake of mission, for the sake of suffering,
we need to keep our true home,
whose architect and builder is God, in view.
Like my Casio watch, we as a church must keep
two times in mind.
The time of this world, today, February 24th, 2004,
where we're called to be salt and light,
and the time of the end of our journeys.
Worship is a place where we can recalibrate our time,
remembering that death is not the final stop in
this trip.
One day, one day we will be at home with the Lord.
And that makes all the difference in the world,
even now.
Let's stand and sing.
Sing the wondrous love of Jesus,
sing his mercy and his grace.
In the mansion's bright and blessed,
he'll prepare for us a place.
When we all get to Heaven,
what a day of rejoicing we'll be.
When we all see Jesus,
we'll sing and shout and shout the victory.
As we leave here today, let us keep our eyes on Jesus,
the author, perfecter of our faith,
the goal set before us.
But let us shine as the sons and daughters
of the father that we are.
This is the season for a new anointing.
This is the season for a fresh outpouring.
That the sons and daughters of the King of glory
may arise and shine.
That the sons and daughters of the King of glory
may arise and shine as we declare.
This is the day, this is the day,
this is the day that the Lord has made.
I will rejoice,
I will rejoice and be glad in it.
This is the day, this is the day that the Lord
has made, in the beginning God created.
And for his pleasure all creation sings, every
son and daughter of the King of glory now arise
and shine.
Every son and daughter of the King of glory now
arise and shine as we declare.
This is the day, this is the day that the Lord
has made.
I will rejoice and be glad in it.
This is the day, this is the day that the Lord
has made.
Let your glory fill the earth, let your glory
fill the earth.
As we declare this is the day.
This is the day that the Lord has made.
I will rejoice.
I will rejoice and be glad in it.
This is the day.
This is the day that the Lord has made.
King of glory.
Fill the earth.
King of glory, fill the earth. King of glory,
fill the earth, as we declare, this is the day
that the Lord has made.
I will rejoice, and be glad in it. This is the
day, this is the day that the Lord has made. I
will rejoice and be glad in it.
This is the day, this is the day that the Lord
has made.
Amen. Have a great day.