On Not losing Heart
On Not Losing Heart
Jay Bartow, Pastor Emeritus, First Presbyterian Church of Monterey January 16, 2022
Sermon Texts: Psalm 57; 2 Corinthians 4:1-17
We begin a new year with the hope that it will be new and happy and unlike the previous two years which put us on the ropes. The two years of Covid disrupted our lives in so many ways. Economically we took a major hit with unemployment soaring to over 15% from a low of 4.8%. Socially we were forced indoors, unable to get out and mingle and attend concerts and sporting events, and church. Children couldn’t attend school, creating a crisis of childcare for millions of families and robbing students of the joy of interacting in person with their peers and teachers. My wife Gail did her best to adjust teaching statistics to her college students via zoom. That turned out to be a lot more work for her and less than ideal for her students.
I needn’t go on. You know all too well what I am talking about. Just when we thought we were emerging from this winter of discontent a new variant of Covid, the highly infectious Omicron mutation, spread across our world with devastating speed. We are back to where we were two years ago. It feels like the movie “Groundhog Day”, with Bill Murray stepping in the same puddle and making the same mistakes day after day after day.
Do you feel discouraged? Be honest. I do. And for that reason I have chosen a text from Scripture that confronts discouragement and points to a way through it to hope. As Bruce Larson once told me at a preaching workshop I attended: “Preach to yourself and you will reach most people.” I am listening to this text from 2 Corinthians 4 and hoping that you will listen with me.
The situation in Corinth, a wild party town where the Apostle Paul planted a church, had Paul worried and discouraged. The exciting launch of the church with many coming to faith and leaving their pagan practices was dramatic evidence of the power of the Gospel to transform lives for the better. The faith community at Corinth was marked by enthusiasm and many spiritual gifts: tongues, healing, preaching. But factions formed and began to feud with one another. Paul confronts this problem right at the beginning of his first letter to them. “For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’, or I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ.’ “Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you?” (1 Cor. 1:11-13)
Of course not! What are they thinking? You cannot divide Christ. He is the great unifier, the one who holds all things together in heaven and on earth, is how Paul puts it in his letter to the Colossians (Col. 1:15-17).
Paul sets to work healing the divisions. If you read his brilliant chapter on the body of Christ in Chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians you see that the varieties of spiritual gifts are meant to complement one another and to become a symphony of service to Christ who is the head of his body, which is the church. Each gift is important and to be appreciated.
Then we read 1 Corinthians 13, his incomparable hymn to love, which is the more excellent way: “If I have the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” (1 Cor. 13:1) He says, “Love is patient and kind; love is not envious or boastful, or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way..........It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Cor. 13:4-7)
Paul points them to the resource which alone can heal their divisions. They need to grow up and into love.
But one of the problems Paul confronts is his detractors in Corinth who suggest that he is no great shakes, no trustworthy spiritual guide. Why should they listen to him? Paul reminds them that he proclaimed the truth of Christ’s death for our sins, burial and resurrection on the third day, and numerous post resurrection appearances to his Disciples.
Paul says that last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” (1 Cor. 15:8-9)
Evidently the relationship between Paul and the church deteriorated between the writing of his first and second letter. So once again he seeks to establish his position as a worthy spiritual guide to them. He makes clear in Chapter 4 of 2 Corinthians that God’s mercy has granted him this task, and for that reason he does not lose heart. He goes on to say that he has spoken God’s truth with integrity. His message is not about him, but about Jesus Christ as Lord and himself as their servant for Christ’s sake.
Paul sets forth a key truth: The Gospel message is what is important. He calls it a treasure and says, “We have this treasure in common clay jars to show that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us (2 Cor. 4:7).” I take heart from this passage because I am well aware that I have often not practiced what I preached. Think about it: who am I to call people to a sacrificial life of love and service in the spirit of Jesus? In spite of that, I have seen people grow in their love for God and others as I have proclaimed the word of Christ to them. That convinced me that the power is God’s and not mine.
As we read the Gospels we see that the Disciples of Jesus were far from perfect. They frequently misunderstood what he was trying to teach them. One time he asked them what they were arguing about as they walked with him. They were silent because they were discussing who among them was the greatest. He sat them down and said, “If anyone would be first, that person must be the last of all and servant of all.”
There are many accounts of similar misunderstanding on their part, and yet Jesus sticks with them and prepares them to carry on the great work he has begun. Their very weakness and imperfection will serve to highlight the extraordinary power of the Gospel message to bring hope and foster love in the hearts of its hearers.
No doubt you often feel inadequate to bear witness to your faith in Christ. There is so much you don’t know, you get tongue tied, you feel you will be an embarrassment to the God you believe in. You wish you could preach like Billy Graham with similar effect.
I went to a Billy Graham school of evangelism when I was in seminary and I learned something that surprised me. The overwhelming percentage of those who came forward to receive Christ were invited to that meeting by a friend who had shared their faith with that person and served as the primary evangelist in that friend’s life. The crusade was just the setting in which those new believers could stand up and acknowledge that they had come to faith in Christ through the witness of their friends. Think of who drew you to faith? Your parents? A friend at school? A spouse? Or perhaps your children? A man in one of my Tuesday Bible studies said that is how he came to faith: through the example of his children.
The call not to lose heart doesn’t just apply to sharing the Gospel with others. Think of persons who work for a more just and compassionate world, often against daunting obstacles. We recently bid Adieu to Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa who for over thirty years worked peacefully for a one person one vote political system. Apartheid was dug in and powerful and threatened him and others like him. But he did not lose heart.
He believed God wanted a better day for his nation. And that day came without the rivers of blood everyone had predicted. Then Bishop Tutu headed up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was designed to learn the true story of what happened. That commission was charged with seeking healing and amnesty in most cases. A very courageous move. Tutu wrote a book about its work called, “No Way Forward Without Forgiveness.”
William Wilberforce stood before Parliament for twenty years starting in the 1780’s calling for legislation to end the slave trade. His peers laughed and jeered at him saying that would irreparably harm Great Britain’s economy. After all, eighty per cent of the earnings from trade were directly related to the slave trade. But Wilberforce persisted and prevailed.
Your challenge may not be on great a stage. You may be struggling to keep a business afloat in our uncertain economy. You may have a family member who requires extra care and patience.
Or you may be facing a medical challenge which gets you down. I know how that feels. This portable oxygen concentrator I am now using is to help me keep my oxygen levels within a safe range. I am grateful to have it. Wherever we find ourselves we do well to trust Paul’s words: “So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.” (2 Cor. 4:16).
When I shared this sermon with my wife Gail she asked a very practical question, which she often does. How do we do it? How do we not lose heart? How do we find strength to carry on?
That set me to thinking. First of all, we read and reflect on the Scriptures as we are doing right now. And we pray and ask others to pray with and for us.
There were several times during my tenure as your pastor when I was discouraged. My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimers and it became clear that she and her husband could not navigate that illness on their own. I prayed and brought my mother to our community and found a warm and loving residential care facility where she was safe. After a difficult time of transition, she settled in. I brought my mother to our church office every Thursday to help fold the Sunday bulletin with another volunteer, Chuck Voorhees, and they listened to favorite songs and sang along with them. Carol Ferrantelli and Elaine Cole welcomed her and made her feel at home and valued. God bless them for that. Her husband moved to Monterey to be close to her and we helped him find an apartment. He picked her up each morning and they spent the day together. Their last years were about as happy as they could have been, given her illness.
Not too long after that my father began to have some problems and wound up with an untrustworthy caregiver whom he bailed out of jail twice. Once again I prayed and asked you to pray, and after more trips to Palm Desert than I care to remember I was able to find him a trustworthy caregiver who enabled my Dad to stay in the home he designed and built until the very end. As I drove home from those trips I listened to a CD of Black Gospel songs which was given to me by a dear friend and member of our church. I sang for hours and stayed awake and found courage to carry on. Music can lift our spirits and that is why we sing every time we gather.
When you are discouraged reach out to your friends in the faith. And be prepared to be there for them when they need your support.
Two short examples and we are done. If you are down, find a way to be around children. Volunteer to read to them or tutor them or just play with them. Give them a push on a swing and listen to them giggle as they go higher and higher. I built a swing in our back yard and when grandson, Martin, saw it he asked: “Grandpa, did you build that swing for me?” I sure did, Martin.
Take some time to observe God’s marvelous creation. Every morning I look out my back window and watch the Juncos hop around in search of breakfast. I chuckle as I watch the squirrels dart around our yard and up trees with acrobatic grace. And then there are the ducks in the vernal pond at the end of my street. Ducks always make me smile.
Make your own list of how you avoid discouragement. And remember, God uses imperfect people like you and me to accomplish God’s purposes. We are the common clay jars God employs to bring the treasure of God’s word into the world.
I close with a quote from a speech Martin Luther King Jr. gave the night before his assassination. King wasn’t perfect, but he persevered in the quest for justice. Here is what he said: “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I have seen the promised land.
I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.
So I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. ‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.’”
Jay Bartow, Pastor Emeritus, First Presbyterian Church of Monterey January 16, 2022
Sermon Texts: Psalm 57; 2 Corinthians 4:1-17
We begin a new year with the hope that it will be new and happy and unlike the previous two years which put us on the ropes. The two years of Covid disrupted our lives in so many ways. Economically we took a major hit with unemployment soaring to over 15% from a low of 4.8%. Socially we were forced indoors, unable to get out and mingle and attend concerts and sporting events, and church. Children couldn’t attend school, creating a crisis of childcare for millions of families and robbing students of the joy of interacting in person with their peers and teachers. My wife Gail did her best to adjust teaching statistics to her college students via zoom. That turned out to be a lot more work for her and less than ideal for her students.
I needn’t go on. You know all too well what I am talking about. Just when we thought we were emerging from this winter of discontent a new variant of Covid, the highly infectious Omicron mutation, spread across our world with devastating speed. We are back to where we were two years ago. It feels like the movie “Groundhog Day”, with Bill Murray stepping in the same puddle and making the same mistakes day after day after day.
Do you feel discouraged? Be honest. I do. And for that reason I have chosen a text from Scripture that confronts discouragement and points to a way through it to hope. As Bruce Larson once told me at a preaching workshop I attended: “Preach to yourself and you will reach most people.” I am listening to this text from 2 Corinthians 4 and hoping that you will listen with me.
The situation in Corinth, a wild party town where the Apostle Paul planted a church, had Paul worried and discouraged. The exciting launch of the church with many coming to faith and leaving their pagan practices was dramatic evidence of the power of the Gospel to transform lives for the better. The faith community at Corinth was marked by enthusiasm and many spiritual gifts: tongues, healing, preaching. But factions formed and began to feud with one another. Paul confronts this problem right at the beginning of his first letter to them. “For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’, or I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ.’ “Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you?” (1 Cor. 1:11-13)
Of course not! What are they thinking? You cannot divide Christ. He is the great unifier, the one who holds all things together in heaven and on earth, is how Paul puts it in his letter to the Colossians (Col. 1:15-17).
Paul sets to work healing the divisions. If you read his brilliant chapter on the body of Christ in Chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians you see that the varieties of spiritual gifts are meant to complement one another and to become a symphony of service to Christ who is the head of his body, which is the church. Each gift is important and to be appreciated.
Then we read 1 Corinthians 13, his incomparable hymn to love, which is the more excellent way: “If I have the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” (1 Cor. 13:1) He says, “Love is patient and kind; love is not envious or boastful, or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way..........It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Cor. 13:4-7)
Paul points them to the resource which alone can heal their divisions. They need to grow up and into love.
But one of the problems Paul confronts is his detractors in Corinth who suggest that he is no great shakes, no trustworthy spiritual guide. Why should they listen to him? Paul reminds them that he proclaimed the truth of Christ’s death for our sins, burial and resurrection on the third day, and numerous post resurrection appearances to his Disciples.
Paul says that last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” (1 Cor. 15:8-9)
Evidently the relationship between Paul and the church deteriorated between the writing of his first and second letter. So once again he seeks to establish his position as a worthy spiritual guide to them. He makes clear in Chapter 4 of 2 Corinthians that God’s mercy has granted him this task, and for that reason he does not lose heart. He goes on to say that he has spoken God’s truth with integrity. His message is not about him, but about Jesus Christ as Lord and himself as their servant for Christ’s sake.
Paul sets forth a key truth: The Gospel message is what is important. He calls it a treasure and says, “We have this treasure in common clay jars to show that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us (2 Cor. 4:7).” I take heart from this passage because I am well aware that I have often not practiced what I preached. Think about it: who am I to call people to a sacrificial life of love and service in the spirit of Jesus? In spite of that, I have seen people grow in their love for God and others as I have proclaimed the word of Christ to them. That convinced me that the power is God’s and not mine.
As we read the Gospels we see that the Disciples of Jesus were far from perfect. They frequently misunderstood what he was trying to teach them. One time he asked them what they were arguing about as they walked with him. They were silent because they were discussing who among them was the greatest. He sat them down and said, “If anyone would be first, that person must be the last of all and servant of all.”
There are many accounts of similar misunderstanding on their part, and yet Jesus sticks with them and prepares them to carry on the great work he has begun. Their very weakness and imperfection will serve to highlight the extraordinary power of the Gospel message to bring hope and foster love in the hearts of its hearers.
No doubt you often feel inadequate to bear witness to your faith in Christ. There is so much you don’t know, you get tongue tied, you feel you will be an embarrassment to the God you believe in. You wish you could preach like Billy Graham with similar effect.
I went to a Billy Graham school of evangelism when I was in seminary and I learned something that surprised me. The overwhelming percentage of those who came forward to receive Christ were invited to that meeting by a friend who had shared their faith with that person and served as the primary evangelist in that friend’s life. The crusade was just the setting in which those new believers could stand up and acknowledge that they had come to faith in Christ through the witness of their friends. Think of who drew you to faith? Your parents? A friend at school? A spouse? Or perhaps your children? A man in one of my Tuesday Bible studies said that is how he came to faith: through the example of his children.
The call not to lose heart doesn’t just apply to sharing the Gospel with others. Think of persons who work for a more just and compassionate world, often against daunting obstacles. We recently bid Adieu to Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa who for over thirty years worked peacefully for a one person one vote political system. Apartheid was dug in and powerful and threatened him and others like him. But he did not lose heart.
He believed God wanted a better day for his nation. And that day came without the rivers of blood everyone had predicted. Then Bishop Tutu headed up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was designed to learn the true story of what happened. That commission was charged with seeking healing and amnesty in most cases. A very courageous move. Tutu wrote a book about its work called, “No Way Forward Without Forgiveness.”
William Wilberforce stood before Parliament for twenty years starting in the 1780’s calling for legislation to end the slave trade. His peers laughed and jeered at him saying that would irreparably harm Great Britain’s economy. After all, eighty per cent of the earnings from trade were directly related to the slave trade. But Wilberforce persisted and prevailed.
Your challenge may not be on great a stage. You may be struggling to keep a business afloat in our uncertain economy. You may have a family member who requires extra care and patience.
Or you may be facing a medical challenge which gets you down. I know how that feels. This portable oxygen concentrator I am now using is to help me keep my oxygen levels within a safe range. I am grateful to have it. Wherever we find ourselves we do well to trust Paul’s words: “So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.” (2 Cor. 4:16).
When I shared this sermon with my wife Gail she asked a very practical question, which she often does. How do we do it? How do we not lose heart? How do we find strength to carry on?
That set me to thinking. First of all, we read and reflect on the Scriptures as we are doing right now. And we pray and ask others to pray with and for us.
There were several times during my tenure as your pastor when I was discouraged. My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimers and it became clear that she and her husband could not navigate that illness on their own. I prayed and brought my mother to our community and found a warm and loving residential care facility where she was safe. After a difficult time of transition, she settled in. I brought my mother to our church office every Thursday to help fold the Sunday bulletin with another volunteer, Chuck Voorhees, and they listened to favorite songs and sang along with them. Carol Ferrantelli and Elaine Cole welcomed her and made her feel at home and valued. God bless them for that. Her husband moved to Monterey to be close to her and we helped him find an apartment. He picked her up each morning and they spent the day together. Their last years were about as happy as they could have been, given her illness.
Not too long after that my father began to have some problems and wound up with an untrustworthy caregiver whom he bailed out of jail twice. Once again I prayed and asked you to pray, and after more trips to Palm Desert than I care to remember I was able to find him a trustworthy caregiver who enabled my Dad to stay in the home he designed and built until the very end. As I drove home from those trips I listened to a CD of Black Gospel songs which was given to me by a dear friend and member of our church. I sang for hours and stayed awake and found courage to carry on. Music can lift our spirits and that is why we sing every time we gather.
When you are discouraged reach out to your friends in the faith. And be prepared to be there for them when they need your support.
Two short examples and we are done. If you are down, find a way to be around children. Volunteer to read to them or tutor them or just play with them. Give them a push on a swing and listen to them giggle as they go higher and higher. I built a swing in our back yard and when grandson, Martin, saw it he asked: “Grandpa, did you build that swing for me?” I sure did, Martin.
Take some time to observe God’s marvelous creation. Every morning I look out my back window and watch the Juncos hop around in search of breakfast. I chuckle as I watch the squirrels dart around our yard and up trees with acrobatic grace. And then there are the ducks in the vernal pond at the end of my street. Ducks always make me smile.
Make your own list of how you avoid discouragement. And remember, God uses imperfect people like you and me to accomplish God’s purposes. We are the common clay jars God employs to bring the treasure of God’s word into the world.
I close with a quote from a speech Martin Luther King Jr. gave the night before his assassination. King wasn’t perfect, but he persevered in the quest for justice. Here is what he said: “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I have seen the promised land.
I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.
So I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. ‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.’”
