LIVE BY FAITH

Hebrews 10: 35-39

Rite of Confirmation

Sunday, May 20, 2007

How is today like New Years’ Day?

One answer might be: on both days, something ends and something begins. Today, you confirmands are ending three years of instruction, aimed at teaching your heads and shaping your hearts with faith in Jesus Christ. Today, also you begin the next phase of your walk with Jesus.

On New Year’s Day, as people close out the old year, reflecting on what didn’t get done and enter the new, with hopes of future accomplishments and improvement, they make New Year’s Resolutions. Maybe you made some of those. I always make one to get healthier—to exercise more, lift weights, that sort of thing.

Today, you confirmands will be making some promises. You will promise to be faithful to what you’ve been taught. You will promise to hold on to this faith and Jesus’ hand—no matter what, even death. The question facing you today is this: are these promises you can keep, or, are they like those New Year’s resolutions—forgotten a few weeks after they’ve been made?

The author to the Letter to the Hebrews has something to say to you confirmands—actually, to everyone who seeks to be faithful to following Jesus. He writes about persevering and enduring in faith. He talks about a confidence we can have as we live by faith. He also talks about how this is possible, since we’re not relying on our own strength to live by faith, but Christ’s.

Thinking about New Year’s resolutions, why do you think they fail?

One reason, I think, is that you have to work at them. Saying that you’re going to do something and actually doing it are two different things. To accomplish your resolution means you have to take the time to make it happen—you have to follow through with actions what your words have promised. That’s hard to do. You’ll notice that, despite my annual resolutions to exercise and get strong, I am not buff. How have you done on your resolutions?

Another reason that New Year’s resolutions fail is that you have to want them to happen badly enough that you’re willing to pay the cost. Think about that a moment.

When you all had to write your confirmation essays, how many of you sat down in December or January and took the time to think it out and write it down? How many of you were so confident that you could do it that you wrote it in the car on the way in to church the day they were due? There was little cost, because you were confident you could do it.

I’m the same way. I’m working on my Doctor of Ministry degree and that means I have to write a lot of papers. You all know that I have no problem coming up with words to say—I can write ten pages just clearing my throat! I can write what I need to get done in a weekend. However, when there’s a cost to pay, it doesn’t get done.

Weight-lifting takes time and it takes work. You can’t sit down in a weekend and work out until you’re silly and expect to have the muscles you want. The saying, “No gain without pain,” is true. We don’t want to pay the cost, so we give up.

What about those promises you’re going to make to live by faith?

Hebrews offers the encouragement to “persevere.” Living by faith is something you have to work at, too. It isn’t like you’re done with confirmation instruction, so you can say, “poke me with a fork, I’m done!” Living by faith means that what you’ve learned will inform and shape the decisions you make, the choices you will make—the life you will live.

Living by faith means that the most important thing about you isn’t that you play baseball or soccer or want to go to college or get a good job: it means that you say that the most important thing about you is that Jesus Christ is your Lord. That doesn’t happen by wishing it so. That happens with Bible study, with prayer, with regular worship attendance and with the help of the Holy Spirit. It takes work.

Hebrews also encourages you and me to “endure.” We promise not just today to live by faith but every day to live by faith—even when there’s a cost to pay. Living by faith means ending a relationship because that other person is dangerous to your faith. Living by faith means making choices that your friends don’t and sticking with those choices because they honor Christ. Ask the people sitting behind you how they’ve done with their confirmation promises. They’ll tell you that, if it depends solely on your reason and strength, it won’t happen.

We just said that a few minutes ago when we read Luther’s Explanation to the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed together. Living by faith is not something you and I can do by our own reason or strength. We aren’t willing to pay the cost and we aren’t able to persevere. But, we aren’t in this by ourselves.

Hebrews quotes the prophet Habakkuk. Habakkuk was having problems persevering and enduring. As he watched from his place on Jerusalem’s walls, he saw the Babylonian army coming, destroying everything in their path. He wondered how God’s people were going to endure—the cost was beyond what they could pay? God answered.

God promised One would come to battle for His people. God promised that the enemies of His people don’t win because He will send One who will do what they cannot do.

Jesus has come. Jesus did what was needed. He was faithful to His Father’s will. He lived the righteous life in our place. He also paid the cost to defeat our enemies. We could not resist sin nor live faithfully to the promises we make to God. Jesus paid the price for our redemption from sin and puts His strength by the work of the Holy Spirit in you.

What’s more, Jesus wanted to do this. He endured the cross and persevered through the grave because He loves you. He sees the whole movie of your life—He saw each of you confirmands sitting here today and wanted you to be with Him. He loves you that much.

Remember as you promise to walk with Him, He promises to walk with you. You have the faith to live. By baptism, you are connected to Jesus and He has given you the faith you need. He has given you His Spirit so you can want to live by this faith. The promises your parents and god-parents made on your behalf and you know make for yourself are possible not because you say them—or even because the people sitting behind you are praying for you (although these are all good things)—they are possible because Jesus gives you His strength.

So your promises are more than New Year’s resolutions. Connected to Jesus, you can persevere and live so that being His is the most important thing to be said about you. Connected to Jesus, you can endure the cost of following Him, surrendering your choices to Him because you love Him that much. You can live by faith.

You know, I talked about my resolution to get into shape. However, I won’t run into you at the gym. But, the because Jesus gives you and me the strength that makes our promises made in faith more than New Year’s resolutions, I know where I will see you. As we live by faith—today and forever, by His grace and Spirit—I will see you in heaven.