Don’t lose heart.
I love that phrase even more than “Do not be afraid.” Even though angel warriors don’t show up with this message, it hits home. Think about these phrases.
Don’t lose your head.
We don’t want to end up like John the Baptist or Goliath, so we don’t take this one seriously. We don’t want to go crazy and act nuts even though we do sometimes. The idea that we would act crazy in a situation is preposterous to us. We won’t lose our heads.
Don’t lose your life.
We don’t put our lives in danger. There are few hills we’re willing to die on. We don’t want to pull a George Bailey even though we may talk about it. We would love to have the opportunity to be heroic in some way, but we most often miss the everyday heroics—offering our table to a pregnant woman in a crowded lunch restaurant, doing more at the end of a long work day than waving at the elderly next door neighbor who lives alone, or lingering at bedtime to determine if a child really wants to talk or is merely delaying the inevitable. So, we won’t lose our lives. [Those serving in the Armed Forces and First Responders, please disregard this.]
Don’t lose your soul.
We’ve seen those silly movies where the character signs over his life to the devil to get something he or she has always wanted. For crying out loud, we let our little girls watch Ursula whip up some hefty magic on Arial. Nevertheless, we know our lives are better with Jesus than without so we stick with the home team even though sometimes we act like practical atheists in our fear. Every time we doubt Him or don’t give Him more than ten minutes to answer prayers we should’ve trusted Him with months ago, we don’t believe He will work, or at the very least, that He is good to us. Even so, we’re not willing to lose our souls.
Don’t lose your ________.
You can fill in the blank with the thing from your life. House. Job. Car. Marriage. Relationship with a child. We would never sacrifice those on purpose, yet many of us find ourselves on this side of something we’ve lost. And it hurts. And it leads us to fear. But even now, in our grief and pain, there are things we can’t imagine losing.
These are the reasons I love the phrase, “Don’t lose heart.” It’s what we do give up, even though we don’t want to.
The word heart is one of those words that has multiple sources in Greek and Hebrew and has multiple meanings. In the passage for today, it is translated fainthearted. You know what fainthearted feels like don’t you. In the worst cases in my life, there are fuzzy lights at the edge of my vision, I hear a ringing in my ears, and my heart beats wildly. I blink to try to clear the fuzzy lights and feel burning instead. My eyes want to tear but if I let the tears through I won’t be able to function so I hold them back instead. My mouth goes drier than after a night of snoring at 100dB. And then I freeze. I used to think I was weird. When fully afraid and fainthearted, I wouldn’t fight or flee, I would freeze. I didn’t know that was a thing until counseling.
What does fainthearted feel like to you?
Believers in the First Century faced challenges we can’t even imagine. While they knew not the joys of refrigeration, indoor plumbing, major league baseball, and internet service, we know from Third World countries that still live in environment common in Palestine 2,000 years ago that life isn’t easy. Life was particularly hard on Jewish converts to The Way, what they called Christianity back then. First, those they used to attend synagogue with and sacrifice beside were mad at them because they had left them to become apostates who thought the Messiah was a carpenter’s son. And if you were the only member of a family who defected to follow Jesus, look out, times were going to be hard. The Romans didn’t like them because they worried the Little Christs (What Christian means) would try a coup. Thus some had to run from lions in the coliseum.
They had lots of reasons to become fainthearted—in addition to relationship crises, internal angst, struggles with unbelief, and more that we all deal with.
That’s what makes this passage so powerful. The larger context is very familiar. So familiar that it drowns out our understanding of the encouragement in the middle of it.
Here’s the key verse.
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
So, I hear, “Don’t forget Jesus. Think about what the religious leaders and the Romans and the crowd did to Him. How bad was that? Compare that to your day of trying to get a child to obey or finishing a project on deadline. Don’t lose heart.”
Now read it in the bigger context
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits land live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Don’t lose heart.
Don’t lose heart by comparing yourself to the who’s who of the Bible I just talked about on the previous few pages. Don’t lose heart because Bible commentators trying to be cute dubbed in the Hall of Fame of Faith and for some reason think it’s cool to challenge you to add your name to the hall. In a lot of ways you and I have as much chance of that as we do having our names and faces in Cooperstown or Dayton.
Don’t lose heart in the running. Yes, it’s a marathon. You will hit the wall many times. You will flirt with injury. Your feet may become numb. Your nipples might bleed. But keep running. One foot in front of the other. Lose everything else—sweat, protein, body mass, energy, your mind, the race, and a little blood—but don’t lose heart.
Don’t lose heart in your battle against sin. Sure there is grace but life is so much richer if we’re not locked in the death grip of that sin which sidelines you and me. Jesus died for our sins. Are we willing to not raid the fridge at midnight, not click on that link, stop after two beers, or not click on the next episode on Netflix? Will not bingewatching that show (or enter your besetting sin) cause you to bleed or die? I didn’t think so. Then don’t lose heart. Keep going.
Don’t lose heart amid the discipline. Remember, discipline is not punishment. If God wanted to punish you and me, there are a lot more options in His tool belt. He wants us to walk with Him, He wants to be with us, He calls us—as hard as it is to believe—friends. His discipline is like an editor making a writer say more clearly what he or she means for the sake of life change. His discipline is like a coach helping an athlete go from second string to All American. His discipline is like His discipline is like a watch maker retooling parts that are worn and tightening springs that are loose so that the watch runs perfectly for years to come.
Friend, don’t lose heart. Don’t become fainthearted. When you feel your heart palpitating and the ringing in your ears drowns out your surroundings, lean in to Him. Say in your head, or maybe out loud, “God loves me.”
Don’t lose heart.