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Hebrews 12:1-3
Every year at my school they used to
make us run what seemed like a double marathon in the sports carnival. I’m
sure it was only three miles but to me, for whom brushing my teeth is
about as aerobic as I get, this was a major event. One year the gun fired
for the race and this new kid called Bob Chen flew out of the blocks and
shot ahead of us at lightning speed. And we all thought, ‘Oh my goodness,
where’s this guy come from? He’s amazing.’ He tore up one side of the
school oval and our whole year group was jogging sedately behind him
thinking we’ve seen the new school champion. And then Bob Chen veered
slightly off the route and headed straight for some trees, where we saw
him stop, bend double and as we all jogged past, Bob Chen threw up all
over his nice new trainers before collapsing in a heap.
Bob Chen is famous for that at our
school, not least because the next year he did exactly the same thing.
Tore off as soon as the gun went. Sprinted around the oval where all the
spectators were, got to the first tree, and again threw up violently.
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from
Bob Chen it’s that anyone can start a race. It’s entirely another thing
to finish it.
Well the writer of the book of Hebrews
which we’re looking at this morning is concerned with exactly this thing.
People who start the race of the Christian life but don’t finish it. This
letter is written to people who get going in the Christian life and then
veer off course or they stop running altogether because it’s too tough.
And Hebrews tells us again and again to keep going. Don’t just start the
race – make sure you finish it.
As we begin another year at St James
we want to make sure that we keep going – that we run strongly this year.
Because I’m guessing that there are some here this morning who have said
“Yes” to Jesus Christ but you really haven’t ever started running the
race. Or maybe running the race for you has become a distant memory and
right now you’re sauntering at your own pace. Well this morning is
especially for you. Today we want to commit to (verse 1) “running with
perseverance the race marked out for us.”
[SLIDE – “Running the Race”]
Running the race is a common picture
in the Bible for the Christian life. Let me give you one example. Paul in
1 Corinthians 9 says this:
[SLIDE – “1 Corinthians 9:24-27”]
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one
gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who
competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a
crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last
forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not
fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave
so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be
disqualified for the prize.”
The Christian life is a race. It
demands strict training. It demands that I beat my body and make it my
slave. It demands self-control and great discipline. And it involves
running after a set goal. It demands a single-minded desire to win the
prize.
That is the normal Christian life.
This, if you call yourself a Christian, is the race that you and I MUST
run. If I know nothing of running, if the idea of beating my body and
making it my slave is totally alien, if strict training is a foreign
concept to me then it may just be that I’m not running the race at all. I
might only be pretending to be a Christian.
[SLIDE – out ‘1 Cor 9]
Running the race IS the normal
Christian life. This morning, as we think about the year ahead let’s make
sure that this year we get on the track and start running the race marked
out for us.
So as we look to run this race, the
first question to ask is – what kind of race is it?
[SLIDE – “What kind of race?”]
We need to know what kind of race it
is, if we’re going to run well. So as we look down at verse 1 we see that
it is the race “marked out for us.” The race marked out for us.
This race we are to run is not an
aimless ramble. It is set before us, marked out and defined. There is a
start, there is a finish and there is a path we must travel. Therefore
obedience is key to running this race.
[SLIDE – “Obedience”]
There is no other race to run other
than the one marked out for us. We can go off on a detour, we can run
aimlessly on our own agenda but if we do so we are not running the race.
And if we’re not running the race, how do we expect to win the prize?
In 2003 we must all be so prayerful
that we would be obedient to run the race marked out for us and not to go
off course on our own. Commit yourself once more to obedience – to saying
‘Lord, wherever you lead me, I will follow.’ We must do that continually
because running the race is not a passing concern.
That is the second thing to notice
about what kind of race we’re running – it calls for endurance.
[SLIDE – “Endurance”]
We are Not in a sprint, or a middle
distance event – this is a long distance race.
Look down with me at the passage and
we’ll see in verse 1 we are to run “with perseverance”. Then in verse 2
we look at how Jesus ran His race and we see He “endured the cross” and
again in verse 3 He “endured” opposition. In verse 4 it’s described as a
“struggle” and again in verse 7 the writer entreats us to “endure
hardship as discipline”.
This is a long distance race. It’s a
quadruple marathon that we’re all running together. And it calls for
endurance and perseverance.
“Perseverance” said Winston Churchill
“is to go from one failure to the next without diminishing enthusiasm.”
It’s a good definition I think. As we encounter failure after failure in
our own lives and hurdle after hurdle put up by others we are to keep
going and keep going and keep going without diminishing in enthusiasm.
That’s perseverance. That’s the kind of race that every single Christian
is called to run.
Adoniram Judson was a missionary in
Burma for 18 years. He went six years without a convert. He endured
torture and imprisonment and he admitted that he never saw a ship sail
without wanting to jump on board and go home. When his wife's health
failed, he put her on a homebound ship in the knowledge that he would not
see her for two full years. That night he wrote in his diary:
"[Lord] If we could find some quiet resting place on earth where we
could spend the rest of our days in peace. . ." But he cut this
thought short. He steadied himself and then wrote this remarkable
postscript: "Life is short. Millions of Burmese are perishing. I am
almost the only person on earth who has attained their language to
communicate salvation." And he stayed on in Burma.
He went from hardship to hardship,
from failure to failure and he kept going. He ran in obedience and he ran
with endurance. And at times it was almost unbearably lonely, and
frightening and painful. But he kept going in the race marked out for
him.
This race is explicitly NOT the race
we would choose for ourselves. If we had our way, if we followed only our
own sinful desires, we would not choose missionary work in Burma, we
would not choose to stay in a difficult marriage that seems to hold only
pain right now. If we had our way, we would not choose to try and
reconcile with that friend who has hurt us so much, nor would we resist
that sin that promises instant relief from our pain. The race marked out
for us is not the one we would ordinarily choose, because our hearts are
deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt.
At every turn we would choose to
please ourselves and minimize our pain. But that is not the race marked
out for us – we are to run the race of obedience and endurance. This
year, when your parents’ health fails, or your own, when your job is
threatened or worse, when you are let down by the person you love most,
when you feel so desperately alone, at these times the race marked out
will seem terrifying.
How on earth will you keep going at
these times? How will you run, when the race seems to bring only pain?
This week we asked people on the
streets what keeps them going when times are tough. As you listen to
their answers try to think how you’d respond to the same question…
[VIDEO – Vox pops “What keeps you going when times are tough?”]
Job, mortgage, cat, red bull, booze.
That’s not really good enough is it. Life does its worst to you – where
do you turn? My cat. I know that most of those were only joke answers –
but they’re joke answers because people don’t actually have any real
answers. Even the couples who said “each other” – it’s a wonderful sentiment
and it’s commendable but if we’re honest for a second – life is a
desperately scary and painful place. And the comfort of ‘each other’
provides relief, but it doesn’t provide a solution.
If we want a solution we must look to
the designers manual. We were made by Christ, for Christ. And He tells us
how we are to endure. He doesn’t just ask that we run the race in
obedience and endurance – he also tells us how we are to run in this
passage.
[SLIDE – “How do we run?”]
So how do we run? If it’s going to be
so hard – how will we find the strength in 2003 to do this.
Firstly we are to look back.
[SLIDE – “Look back”]
Do you notice how this passage begins.
It begins with a great “therefore” And whenever you read the Bible and you
come across a therefore you always ask “what’s the therefore there for?”
Well it’s there because of what’s before it. Hebrews 11 details the lives
of the great heroes of faith who have run the race before us. They are
Old Testament believers who he calls in verse 1 “a great cloud of
witnesses”. And they witness to the fact that the Christian life is
do-able. You may be daunted by the prospect of running the race and you
might be thinking ‘surely no-one can do it!’ Well here in Hebrews 11 are
a whole list of people who have run the race in the past and they have
obeyed and they have endured even though at times it was Very tough.
Have a look up in Hebrews 11 verses 36
and 37. “Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained
and put in prison. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were put
to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins,
destitute, persecuted and ill treated.” Life was tough and yet they ran
the race in obedience and endurance – How? They did it all “By faith.”
That is the repeated phrase in Hebrews
11. How did the Old Testament saints do all they did? They did it by
faith. (v4, 5, 7, 8, 20, 21, 22, 23). Faith is always at the heart of
obedience. How do you follow someone when it looks tough? You trust them.
Let me show you two examples from
Hebrews 11. As we look back to see how to run the race, look with me at
verse 9. “By faith, Abraham made his home in the promised land like a
stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob,
who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward
to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”
Abraham made a tough obedience
decision – he forsook building houses and cities like his cousin Lot.
Instead he lived in tents. How was he able to renounce a more comfortable
way of living? He trusted that the LORD God of eternity had something
better for him – a heavenly city that will never pass away. He lived by
faith. He took something he knew – that is, that he would one day have an
amazing dwelling in the new creation – and he put it into practice. He
trusted in it, he went the way of obedience and endurance because he was
living by faith.
Now we have the same promises as
Abraham. We know that we too will one day live in a city with foundations
which will put to shame all our efforts at building comfort here and now.
But do we put that into practice? Often we say we trust Christ with our
eternal destiny but our actions show that we don’t even trust Him with
our cheque book. If we really trust Christ – if we know Him as our
precious Lord and Saviour – then of course we trust Him with our finances
and our housing. Of course we can forsake temporary inconveniences
because our eyes are fixed forwards on His incredible new creation
future.
Or take another example from Hebrews
11, turn with me to verse 26: “Moses regarded disgrace for the sake of
Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was
looking ahead to his reward.” Moses grew up in the royal household in
Egypt – he had the treasures of Egypt set before him. But he renounced
them – for the sake of Christ. Even though he faced disgrace, Christ was
more valuable to him. And he trod the path of obedience because he was
looking ahead to his reward. He obeyed because he trusted.
Of course Christ who died for me and
who has prepared for me a future too wonderful to describe – of course He
can be trusted with my career path. And so by faith, Moses ran the race.
And this great cloud of witnesses
testify to the fact that “by faith” this race can be run. If you trust
Christ, the One who has marked out the course, then you can run it – no
matter where it takes you. So as we look back we see that the race can be
run, if we run it “by faith.”
Secondly, as we consider “How do we
run?” we need to see there is much to “Leave Behind”
[SLIDE – “Leave Behind]
Verse 1: “Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud
of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that
so easily entangles.”
If you’re going to run this race you
can’t be hindered by anything.
I don’t know if you have dreams like
mine, but I do a lot of running in my dreams. Not anywhere else, just my
dreams. But always as I’m running away from something or chasing after
something I feel like there’s a rope around my waist tied to a great big
weight. I’m moving my legs, I’m huffing, I’m puffing but I’m not going
very far. And it’s a real struggle. It’s frustrating.
I wonder if that’s you in the
Christian life. It’s often me. Sometimes you get the feeling that you’re
just going through the motions. You’re trying to progress in the
Christian life but you don’t seem to be getting anywhere.
Well if that’s you – if you’re finding
the Christian life a real struggle, then I think this passage has a
question for you – “What’s holding you back?” Verse 1 says – there are
many things that weigh us down in the Christian life and all kinds of
sins that tangle us up. So what is it for you? Ask the Holy Spirit to
reveal it in your life. Maybe it’s a relationship, maybe it’s some sinful
desire that’s trapping you, whatever it is it’s hindering you from
running the race.
I once heard a description of catching monkeys that struck me. Do you
know how they catch monkeys in some countries? You take a heavy clay jar
and you put in it a sugar coated apple that’s just smaller than the neck
of the jar. The monkey comes along and sees the apple in the jar and
sticks his hand in to get it, but as he does so his hand gets stuck in
the jar and he can’t get away. The monkey would be free if only he’d
release the apple, but the reason why this trap works so well is that the
monkey will not let go of the apple. And he’s trapped.
That’s what sin does in the Christian
life – it so easily entangles. Worse – it makes us a slave. If you’ve
been a Christian for any length of time you’ll be able to identify with
the feeling that sin makes you a slave. It traps you and drains you and
makes running the race almost impossible.
So we leave it behind. We throw it
off. Like a cumbersome coat that’s been weighing us down. We throw it off
and leave it behind.
Now there are two mistakes we can make
as we try to leave behind our sin. Two mistakes - Firstly, we could try
to ignore our sin (carry on regardless). But no, that’s not right – we
ask God to reveal to us all those things holding us back – we identify
our sins so as to rid ourselves of them. But Secondly, on the other hand,
we don’t dwell on our sins – we don’t spend our time in worldly sorrow
saying “Woe is me, I’ll never get it right.” We mustn’t fix our eyes on
our sin. We fix our eyes, verse 2, on Jesus.
Don’t look back at your sin, says
Hebrews – look ahead.
[SLIDE – “Look ahead”]
Look to Jesus who is the author and
perfector of our faith. That is – He is the beginning and the end of our
faith. He is the one who the saints of Hebrews 11 all looked to and He is
Himself the ultimate Hero of faith. He is the one who ran the race
perfectly – who completed the course so that at the end He could sit down
at the right hand of the Father. There’s no better way of showing that
you’ve finished the race than by sitting down on the victor’s throne.
Jesus has obeyed and He has endured – in all the ways that we fail. Jesus
has run the race and has overcome it all. He is gloriously enthroned as
the champion. So look to Him.
Don’t look at yourself, don’t fix your
eyes on you – fix them on Jesus. Don’t dwell on your sin – dwell on
Jesus’ righteousness, because that righteousness is yours by faith. There
is nothing to be gained by focusing on yourself – that is the essence of
sin. For every one look at yourself, take ten looks at Jesus.
That is how you deal with sin. Not by
making new year’s resolutions to become nicer, but by looking away from
yourself to Jesus. To desire Him more than anything else. We don’t throw
off our sin to become more moral or to feel better about ourselves. We
throw it off because we are hotly pursuing Christ and nothing will stand
in our way. We desire Him so much more than the fleeting and tawdry
trappings of sin. Fixing our eyes on Jesus is not just how you run the
race – it is why!
When we asked the question “What keeps
you going when times get tough” – surely the answer is Christ! Our love
of Him and His eternal love for us. Was that your answer?
When the Psalmist writes “As the deer pants for the water, so my soul
longs after you” – can you relate to that longing?
When Paul writes “I want to know
Christ” do you instinctively say “Yes Lord, show me more of Yourself.”
That is to fix your eyes on Jesus.
Is that you? Was that you once? Is
that who you want to be? Someone straining ahead with every fibre of
their body desiring Christ more than anything else. That is a worthy new
years resolution. That is how you run the race with perseverance,
enduring failure after failure without diminishing enthusiasm because
your life is worth nothing to you if you can’t have Jesus. You run the
race by looking away from yourself and away from your current hardships
and to set your mind on the eternal reality of things.
That is the life modeled to us by
Jesus Himself “who (verse 2) for the joy set before Him, endured the
cross, scorning its shame.” Jesus knew that the hardships of this life,
even the horror and shame of crucifixion, will be swallowed up by the joy
we will experience when we finish the race.
On resurrection morning, after 10
minutes of utter bliss in the new creation how we will wish that we’d
endured More for Jesus. On that day, how puny our present sufferings will
seem, and how we will wish we’d run harder.
Let’s begin 2003 by together
committing to running the race wherever it may take us. I thought we
could end by saying Hebrews 12:1 and 2 together out loud as a prayer to
start the new year. If you’re keen on running the race this year please
pray verses 1 and 2 together with me:
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of
witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so
easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out
for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our
faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its
shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him
who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow
weary and lose heart.
Amen
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