There was a man who never knew his grandfather.  Many years before, this grandfather, knowing his grandson would barely remember him, wrote a letter.  He tried to tell his newborn grandson all he could, how much he loved him.  He wanted to write something encouraging and true.  The best he could do was let his grandson know the importance of endurance.  “Hold on,” he wrote in several places.  “Gold comes out finer for the fire.”  He thought of the times of fire in his own life and knew he was writing the truth, hard and lovely, painful and glorious.  He wrote, “Just because something is hard doesn’t mean it’s not worth the time and the work.  It’s because it is hard that it’s worth the work.”  Having started his own business, he knew that was true, too.  “Never lose hope”: that was the last sentence of the letter.

The grandson kept that letter.  It got a big tear once; the boy was upset the rest of that day.  It was lost on at least two occasions and found both times, with a little help.  The boy kept it with his treasures and would take it out and read it when he felt sad and lonely for the grandfather he never knew, or when he felt sad and lonely about his life.  That letter helped him through high school and kept him from at least one really bad choice, probably more.  During his military service, he would take out that letter and read it, also in his college years, when all the work was pushing him to his limits.  As it turned out, he read it the afternoon before his first date with the woman who would become his wife.  He read it to his firstborn child the night she came home.  When his father died, he read it sitting alone in his bedroom.  Hold on; never lose hope.

As he lived more and experienced more and thought more about it all, he realized what his grandfather had been saying to him, all along, was have faith.

It seems like it should be so simple, right?  Just have faith.  Okay.  No.  When it’s sunshine and smiles—we love sunshine and smiles!—faith is easy.  But easy faith gets washed away by the first flood of tears, shattered with the first hard fall in our lives.  I am not a rich man; God has made me remarkably wealthy.  All that I have to share with you is Jesus Christ.  The Good News is that he is everything!  How can we be joyful?  Christ has been given to us!  How can we be hopeful?  Christ has been given to us!  How can we have faith?  Christ has been given to us.  Oh, all the things you and I lack or want, making us fretful and gloomy, but in Christ, we truly lack nothing.  We can do all things, through Christ.  He is our victorious peace.

Paul knows that the Christians trying to live their faith in the center of the empire need clear teaching and strong encouragement, so he doesn’t candy-coat matters.  He points to hope, always to hope, eternal hope.  Hope is help.  Christ is help.  Paul writes, “everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope” (15:4).  What is faith without hope, or love without hope?  Dead, or pointless at least.  Paul is telling us that all the words of this book, this big, true, wonderful, terrible, eye-opening, heart-breaking, uplifting book—all these words aim at giving us all hope; we have that hope because we have victorious peace.

The hope comes by way of encouragement.  Now, the Bible is perfectly candid about the mess of this world and the mess of our hearts.  The Bible is an unsparing account of human failure.  The Bible is a glorious account of God’s grace, love, and mercy, poured out, lavished upon all who will receive Him and even upon those who decline to acknowledge Him, decline to make Him significant in their living.  God saves.  God is always saving His own, though the road be rough and the way hard.  The narrow way.  Narrow is rarely a term of praise, except here.  Beloved, hold onto the holy truth that there is always light in the darkness.  All those homes around us with their lovely lights are unwitting reminders.  Always light in the darkness.  Take courage!  God is at work for your salvation.  God will have you live; God will have you rejoice.

By this encouragement and the hope we have, we train ourselves for ever greater endurance.  Tell me, please: does life get any easier?  Oh, it may get more comfortable.  And we may go more places, do more things, but does life get any easier?  So far, I don’t think so.  Looking at the lives of my grandparents, my parents, and those around me, so far, I don’t think so.  There are successes and joys, oh yes, praise God!  And there are stumblings and sixth place finishes, and we get wounded; sometimes we wound ourselves.

It’s how we meet reversals, failures, and hard times as well as how we celebrate the sunshine, which shapes our character.  God is shaping our character after the pattern of Christ.  Christ endured: always encouraging, always giving hope.  That long sermon known as Hebrews commends to us the endurance of the prophets.  The Bible gives us hope because the Bible shows us example after example of endurance, faith that endures.  The endurance, the hope, the encouragement—God’s gifts for His own.  I couldn’t endure a single moment without God’s grace.  Is it this way for you, too?—I need constant reminders and signs of God’s grace.

Knowing God is truly with us, Immanuel, is the most blessed gift any of us could possibly receive.

“May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had” (15:5).  Loving his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end, to the utmost, all the way.  As we live and serve one another and encourage one another, we help to build up one another in endurance.  We all need that for this journey.  We encourage one another and help build endurance as we visit one another in sickness, in the hospital, or just because.  We encourage one another and help build endurance as we share kindness and thoughtfulness, concern and care with one another.  Love looks like something.  We encourage one another and help build endurance as we get to know one another better.  Is there a brother or sister here you just don’t know that well?  Why?  What could you do to change that?  I am hearing of a desire here for more fellowship opportunities—we want to spend time together!  Hallelujah!  Now, beloved, let’s make that happen.  We encourage one another and help build endurance as, together, we study God’s Word and grow closer in the Word.  We encourage one another and help build endurance as we lift hands, hearts, and minds together in worship.  We encourage one another and help build endurance as we work together to help our neighbors know Christ better, through us, by serving them in his name.  Let’s not just be the Little Church That Could; let’s be the little church that does.

As we live into this way, God forms Christ in us, bringing about “complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus” (15:5, NLT).  The good fruit of this harmony in Christ is how we then bless God “with one mind and one voice” as we “glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (15:6).  Through Jesus Christ, God is also now our God, and our Father.  One thing I will tell anyone who asks about my earthly father: he was always encouraging me.  Even more my heavenly Father!

Our congregation is not as large as it was in former years.  A lot of life has happened over the last three years!  Unhappy as this is to take in, this is also part of the work of the Lord, for His purposes according to His plan.  Now more than ever, let us commit ourselves to growing in the knowledge that we are still and truly better together.  Paul writes, “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God” (15:7).  The praise always goes to God as we ongoingly learn how we can bless one another in Christ.  “Accept one another”: the Greek word Paul uses has the sense of taking something to yourself for your benefit—like surrounding yourself with good things and good people—positive influences.  Receive and welcome one another.  While we each have a personal journey, no one’s journey is private.  We are in this together; together, we’re going to get to where God is leading us, here and hereafter.  It’s good to have companions on the journey.  They won’t all think just like you, or me.  They don’t have to.  Acceptance does not mean blanket approval.

Paul is telling us that Christ is God’s gift of access to God’s heart.  In Christ, God asks us to grant Him and one another access to our hearts.  You are dwelling in the heart of the Most High.  That is the best, safest, loveliest place of all: the source and perfection of love.  So, no, although we know life doesn’t get easier, we also know that we can hope, because we have all encouragement, and we are learning, slowly but steadily, to endure, together.  This is no bare minimum endurance, either: it is the endurance that thrives.  “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (15:13).

God who fills us.  Where?  Here.  How?  Through grace, the Word, even Christ Jesus, our victorious peace, our brilliant joy.  Here is joy, for you, peace for you, possibility for you: Christ, for you.  Knowing God is truly with us, Immanuel—the most blessed gift any of us could possibly receive.

Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength belong to our God forever and ever!