Scripture Reference: Hebrews 12:1-2
“Therefore, since we also have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let’s rid ourselves of every obstacle and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking only at Jesus, the [a]originator and perfecter of the faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Although I have run for exercise for much of my adult life, I have never been very fast. I spent my high school years in San Jose, CA. I participated in a number of sports and was good at all of them, but not great at any.
My brother, Vince, was the track and basketball superstar; I could never get close to his time in the mile and I was no good at basketball. I was more of a cross country runner, and ran 3rd man varsity for several years.
I remember clearly the last race of the year. I was hoping to run significantly under 5 minutes. Vince had set the school record with a 4:20 mile. I was feeling pretty good that day as we ran that last race.
I could see that the clock up ahead at the finish line was still in the 5:00’s, and I did not have that much farther to go. Down the finish stretch I raised my hands triumphantly, as I looked over at the coach who was yelling, “keep your eyes on the finish line.” I did finish with a new personal record of 4:40 and never ran that fast again.
The author of Hebrews 12 is doing for us as Christians what my coach did for me on my final run. Hebrews was written to a group of confessing Christians who were tempted to take their eyes off of Jesus, - ditch their faith in him due to persecution, and return to the relatively safe haven of traditional Judaism.
So throughout the book, the author proclaims the superiority of Jesus, in His Person and Work. Chapter 11, the one preceding this one, comprises the “Great Hall of Faith,” of those who walked with God by faith through various trials. It is in that context, then, that the author encourages all of us who are following Jesus:
“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith …”.
Hebrews says: “Therefore, since we have so great a crowd of witnesses surrounding us …”. It is speaking of all of the people who have run the race of faith before us.
Hebrews 11 tells of the faith of Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and Abraham, and Moses, and others, and how they endured sufferings, overcame obstacles, and ran the race of faith which was before them. We each have obstacles, in our personal lives, and in our churches.
But you and I are not the first to run the Christian race; as countless other saints of God have gone before us. In the opening two verses that are so familiar to us, we see some pretty sage advice from the author. Let’s take a closer look at some of what he said.
I. Lay Aside Every Weight
“Let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us …”
This advice just makes sense. No serious runner wants to load himself up with things which will get in his way when he runs. When you see a runner, they generally have a minimum of apparel on (unless it is very cold out) because they don’t have anything to hinder them, or weigh them down as they run.
Running clothes are minimal in size, and weight; lightness is a premium, because you don’t want anything to weigh you down when you run.
Hebrews 12 says the same thing is true for every Christian running his race. He tells us to “lay aside every encumbrance”. That word “encumbrance” in Greek is “ongkos”, which means a “weight, a burden, a mass, a load which is bulging.”
This conjures up a certain picture in my mind, helping me to understand what the writer is trying to convey. Unfortunately this is a picture of what too many of us are doing in our Christian life: trying to “run the Christian race.” We are running our race while being weighed down.
This automatically reminds me of “Christian,” in John Bunyan’s book Pilgrim’s Progress, who started his walk to the Celestial City with a huge bag on his back, representing a great burden he was carrying. This great burden on his back represented the weight of sin that he desperately sought to be rid of.
I wonder tonight, what are some of the things that “weigh you down” in your walk with The Lord?
We get a hint in the next phrase, where it says “and the sin” which so easily entangles us. The Bible word “and” here can mean “even”, so that it is saying that sin IS the weight. It may be a sin, or it may be something else that is hindering your Christian race.
Would you take a moment right now and ask yourself: what is “weighing you down” and keeping you from being the follower of Jesus that God wants you to be?
— it may be a sinful habit that is like a cancer that is draining your spiritual strength.
— maybe it is bitterness over how you have been treated, or your unwillingness to forgive someone. Unforgiveness is a heavy weight; you can’t successfully run the Christian race with that weight on your back!
— Perhaps it is some friends who are dragging you down spiritually. There may be a person, or some people, in your life that you have brought into your inner circle of friends. You know that as long as they are around, they will hinder you in running the Christian race with distinction.. You need to sever those ties so that you can run the race unhindered. For every prisoner who is a babe in Christ, I encourage them to choose their friends carefully, or suffer the consequences. I suggest they memorize and meditate on the truth of Proverbs 13:20. “He that walks with wise men shall become wise, but a companion of fools will be destroyed.”
— It may be a love for the things of this world that is keeping you from really being totally committed to follow Christ with all your heart. You can’t run the Christian race and try to run to the things of the world at the same time. You need to put those goals aside; they are slowing you down, so that you can run after the Lord.
— Or it could even be something “good” that you are giving too much attention to, and it is taking your attention away from the race that God wants you to run. It could be a hobby, or watching too much television, or spending too much time on the internet; any number of things that are just slowing you down spiritually.
It may be one of these things, or perhaps something different entirely. If you give it some honest thought, with the help of the Holy Spirit, you can probably identify what sin is “slowing you down” in your Christian race.
This verse says that sin “so easily” entangles us. It is easy to let something that someone says or does make us stumble. In this verse God commands us to “lay it aside.”
For any number of us here tonight, the ONE thing we really need to take to heart is this: it is time to lay aside something that you know is slowing you down spiritually, so that you can run the Christian life in a more effective way.
II. Run With Endurance
“… and let us run with endurance …”
It is significant that the verse says “run with endurance” the race which is set before us. The Christian “race” is a race which must be run with ENDURANCE. Someone has well said, “The Christian life is not a sprint; it is a marathon.” How many people have set out to follow Christ, but have turned aside after some period of time?
Or who have decided to really commit themselves to God, but didn’t keep up the commitment? Too many people , like Demas in Scripture have shipwrecked from the faith when things got too rough, or because of a desire for the world that proved to be too much to resist.
Jesus mentions this very thing in The Parable of the Soils in Matthew 13. He said that when the Gospel is “sown” into the world like seed, that some of it hits the road, and the birds devour it. But some of it finds thin soil, and it seems to sprout up quickly, but it withers quickly away.
Jesus said that “plant” is like the person who hears the word and seems to receive it with joy, but just as quickly falls away when persecution or difficulty comes.
That’s just another way of saying that the Christian life is not a “sprint”; it is a marathon. It is not how fast you go, but that you keep on going.
Years ago, I accepted the fact that I will never run again. Having said that, metaphorically, I still have to run my race every day of my life.
I do it with little steps, baby steps if you will, – but steps nonetheless that get me where I’m going. The key is one step in front of the other, no matter how painful. I’m bummed out that it takes me 30 minutes to cover 50-100 yards, but that is the reality of my life.
I can sit back and moan and groan and complain about it, – or look to my Savior, Christ Jesus, who is the author of my faith, who will walk beside me and make sure I get over the finish line.
The Christian life is somewhat like that. We are not called to “sprint” out of the starting gate.
— Jesus didn’t even start His earthly ministry until He was 30 years old.
— John the Baptist did basically the same thing.
— The disciples didn’t just listen to Jesus 1 or 2 times and then go out on their own; they discipled (basically interned) with Jesus for THREE YEARS before they began their ministries.
Rarely do we have that kind of patience. We live in a “microwave” generation. We want things done yesterday. But good things take time: it takes time to make a good meal; it takes time to craft a fine work of art; it takes time to grow a garden — there are no shortcuts for these things.
For my brothers in bonds, it takes time to prove to the parole board that they have put in the time and work, paving the way for a life beyond prison walls. We still think we can “microwave” our church, or our spiritual growth, but we can’t.
A.W. Tozer said, “I have often wished that there were some way to bring modern Christians into a deeper spiritual life painlessly by short easy lessons; but such wishes are vain. No shortcut exists!
God has not bowed to our nervous haste nor embraced the methods of our machine age. It is well that we accept the hard truth now: the man who would know God must give time to Him!
He must count no time wasted which is spent in the cultivation of His acquaintance. He must give himself to meditation and prayer hours on end. So did the saints of old, the glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of the prophets and the believing members of the holy Church in all generations. And so must we if we would follow in their train!”
In other words, there are no “shortcuts”; no “sprint” to through Christian life. You have to spend time, and keep at it for a length of time. This is a good word. For many of us as individuals, we need to just keep at the Christian life. “Run with endurance”. That means:
— getting up and having your quiet time in the morning when you don’t feel like it.
— it means keeping at the ministry God has given you, even when you don’t see it bearing
fruit.
— it means continuing to follow The Lord, even when people have hurt you, or oppose you. You don’t let them discourage you and make you stop. You just keep on — sometimes with “baby steps” if necessary, to keep on going.
Someone has said, we tend to overestimate what we can do in a short period of time, and underestimate what we can do over a longer period of time, and I think that is true for us both as individuals, and as churches.
Don’t think you have to do everything today; commit to doing a little at a time, and plug away at it until you get there — one step at a time.
Don’t think the new pastor is going to fix things overnight; give him time, and be patient, and give him, and the consistent preaching and teaching of the word of God, and the slow but steady work of the Holy Spirit, time, and you will get where God wants you to be — in His time.
But the key is: be patient, both with yourself, with others, and with the church. “Run with endurance” and do not give up in the meantime.
When I am engaged in long walks, always at certain area prisons, I often struggle trying to finish that long stretch to the prison visiting room. I walk so very slow, and people often come up to me asking if I need help. I always tell them thank you, but I’m just really slow. I get to where I’jm going, just a little longer than everyone else.
I’ve had many days in 100 degree heat, in my heavy winter coat, wondering if I can make it to where I’m going, as I feel I’m coming so close to heat exhaustion. As long as I keep putting one foot in front of the other, I know I can make it.
And that’s what we have to do in the Christian life. You can’t think about tomorrow, next month, or next year; simply keep focused on taking one step at a time and you really can “run your race with endurance”!
III. Run The Race Which Is Set Before You
“… the race which is set before us …”
Perhaps this is a minor point, but I think it is an important one to mention: each of us has to run the race which God has set before us.
In one sense, we are all running the same race: that of faithfulness to our calling to follow Christ. But in another sense we each have a particular race which God has set before us. We can’t run anyone else’s race; we can’t run the race we WISH we were running.
We can only run the race which is set before us.We each have a different race. Mine is not yours; yours is not mine; ours is different from others’. We each have our own race, the one which God has set before us. I try my best to convey this truth to prisoners who are struggling with the daily effects of prison life.
They need to rejoice with an inmate buddy who was just granted parole, even in the face of their own denial. Many of my strong brothers in the faith have stood up in Chapel, letting everyone know that they were denied by the board, – followed up by telling the men that God still has more work for him to do in prison. That’s running your faith with endurance! Every believer has a race which is somewhat similar (following Jesus to the end) but which is also very unique to them:
— For example, I know of some believers in China, North Korea and other places who have set before them in their Christian lives a “race” against families who are persecuting them for believing in Jesus, and who are being pressured to register their secret churches with the government authorities. That is a difficult race — but that is also NOT the race which many of us face here in America.
— We have seen Christian brothers and sisters in the Middle East who are being threatened with beheadings if they do not deny Christ. That is not the race which we face.
— But that is not to say that we don’t have our own race. We have “the race which is set before US.”
We have the race of trying to stay faithful in the midst of prosperity and affluence and ubiquitous entertainment and sensualism, which continually tempts us to turn away from following The Lord.
We have the race of continuing to follow even though we are discouraged by life events, or disappointed in people.
We have the race of staying zealous for the Lord even though we would be pressured to “keep a low profile”.
Some of us have the race of trying to serve God in the face of a spouse or family who is not supportive.
Others of us have the “race” of serving God with a different gift or ability than the one we wish we were given.
You might wish that circumstances could be changed, and that you could run a different race, but you can’t. THE ONLY RACE YOU CAN RUN IS THE ONE WHICH IS SET BEFORE YOU! So determine to run the race that is set before you, whatever it is, with all that God gives you.
You are not going to be judged because you didn’t run someone else’s race. You are going to be judged by how you ran the one that God chose to set in front of YOU!
IV. Fix Your Eyes On Jesus
“… fixing our eyes on Jesus …”
The Bible says that in running the Christian race, we need to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. This is important. I remember a lesson from drivers ed when I was a teenager: don’t look into the opposing headlights, because you tend to drift towards whatever you are looking at. In that same vein, this scripture adjures us: “Fix your eyes on Jesus” — Look to Him; drift towards Him, and not anyone or anything else. This is another part of this scripture which applies to many of us today. “Fix your eyes on Jesus” … — NOT on the next pastor. Don’t do that to him!
I saw a “meme” on Facebook this week that said, “The grass is not always greener with another pastor”! That’s true. Don’t lay too much on the shoulders of your next pastor. He is not going to be the “Messiah” or Savior for this church. JESUS is the Savior for this church! Fix your eyes on HIM, and ask HIM to do what only He can do for the church — through the pastor, and through people like you, in the power of His Holy Spirit.
— NOT on other people in the church, for better or for worse.
Sometimes we fix our eyes on bad people in the church. We see people, perhaps even elders who are inconsistent, or hypocritical, or selfish, or radical, or stuck in the mud, or whatever, and we let them turn us away from the church, or worse, from following Christ. But other times we make the opposite, but just as wrong, mistake, of fixing our eyes on GOOD people in the church. We think, “Well, as long as so-and-so is here, we’ll be ok.” But what happens if they die, or leave, or move?
I remember an old Amy Grant song from back when I was a youth, which said: “Say goodbye to the feelings, ’cause the feelings go away. Say goodbye to the people, ’cause the people never stay.” As the song went on to say, “We’ve got to be faith-walkin’ people …” with our eyes fixed on the Lord. If we fix our eyes on people — good ones or bad ones — we will be disappointed; we must fix our eyes on Jesus.
Pastors will disappoint you; church members will disappoint you; YOU will disappoint yourself; but if you fix your eyes on Jesus, He will not disappoint you. He is totally faithful; totally trustworthy; He will never leave you or forsake you; and He is absolutely glorious. He died on the cross to pay for your sin, and rose again to be your living Savior.
He sits at the right hand of God where He intercedes for you right now with God, and He is coming again on the clouds of glory, and we will be enthralled with His glory in His presence forever and ever, and never tire of Him. Fix your eyes on HIM, Hebrews says.
Final Thought
The author of Hebrews is full of wise counsel and exhortations. He’s saying, don’t let the things of this world drag you down. Don’t look at other people, or discouraging things — just keep your eyes fixed on Jesus — and RUN the race He has set before you until the day you meet Him!
Oh Lord, we come before you this night asking that you would come alongside us as we strive to finish our race. Let it be a race of distinction where we cross the finish line in faith and obedience. How I pray as we cross that sacred line, the first words we would hear would be, “well done, thy good and faithful servant, enter into thy rest.”
From: Fight the good fight of faith & life journal: By Gregg Harris
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