Running the Race

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We’re going to be in Hebrews chapter 11 today. Hebrews chapter 11 and chapter 12. We’re not going to go through the whole of both chapters, just sort of the end of 11 and the beginning of 12.

I don’t know about you, but 2015, I look for good things, but it’s not off to a banner start. Maybe it’s just that I’m a pessimist, but I was telling my dad yesterday we were going to get rid of some cardboard boxes, and I told him, this is just not a great way to start the year. Benjamin on Friday.

He’s been sick off and on since last Sunday. I think I told you all that. I don’t remember.

But he just, get better, get worse, get better, get worse. Finally, Friday, I took him to the doctor. He had the flu and an ear infection.

So that was a fun way to start the new year. On Wednesday, which I realized New Year’s Eve, it’s the ending of 2014. Wednesday, I had an appointment at 8 o’clock to take my car in for some repairs because of a recall on the ignition switch.

And I went out to warm up my car to take it down there and noticed thick white smoke coming out of the exhaust. And I worked on cars enough to know that’s not a good sign. I thought, well, maybe. Just fingers crossed, maybe it’s because of the cold.

And then they had it down at the dealership and called me back and said, do you realize you have coolant leaking into your oil? That’s what I was afraid of. That was exactly the thing I was afraid of.

So blown head gasket and probably north of $1,500 they’ll get it fixed for me. I’ve got a new loaner out there. So if y’all don’t think you’re paying me too much because I’ve got this shiny new brand new pickup out there.

It’s a loaner. And I will say we went to dinner Friday or Wednesday night, which was New Year’s Eve. And every time I got in or out of it, I looked like I’d been drinking.

So that was the perfect night. I hadn’t been just y’all know that, but that was a perfect night to have that truck because I fit in with everybody else. But between $1,500 in car repairs and sick child, I’m thinking, oh, 2015’s off to a great start.

But nevertheless, you know, despite the desire sometimes to say, can I go back to bed and wake up in 2016 or something, you know, can I just start this day over? We as Christians are never promised anywhere in the Bible that we’ll have a perfect life, that we’ll have a trouble-free life, that everything will just be smooth sailing, and as I’ve said before, any preacher who tells you otherwise is either confused himself or is lying to you. We’re not promised an easy life.

As a matter of fact, we’re promised trouble, and yet we are promised victory in the midst of the trouble if we continue to press on, if we continue to persevere. And as we go through Hebrews chapter 11, I would love to go through the whole chapter today. You know what?

We could read through it. but most of y’all are going to be familiar with this. Throughout the whole chapter, it lists people who are examples of faith.

We start in verse 1 of chapter 11, and I hadn’t planned to start this far back, but it says, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

And then it begins with Abel making his sacrifice to God. Talks about Enoch, Noah, Abraham. That’s just a few of them.

It goes on to talk about the patriarchs and Moses and others who by faith persevered, who believed God, who trusted in his promises, and as a result were blessed for it. And it goes through this, and we call it, just to shorten it, it’s just saying Hebrews chapter 11 all the time, we refer to it as the hall of faith. And it talks about these examples of people who did not have a perfect life, didn’t have a great start to their year just because they followed God.

As a matter of fact, because they followed God, oftentimes they had more trouble for it. And you’ll probably, if you’ve not found that to be the case, you’re fortunate, and you probably will find that to be the case at some point, that the more you commit to following God, the more difficulty you’re going to have. And yet we don’t have the luxury of saying, well, I quit.

I’m out. I washed my hands of this whole thing. I guess you could, but it’s not going to work out well for us.

And we go through this list and we come up through David and Samuel, Samson in verse 32. And it has listed all of these people. And in verse 32, it says, and what shall I more say?

For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah and David, also in Samuel and of the prophets. And I don’t feel so bad about skipping over those verses this morning because the writer of Hebrews even says, and time would fail me to list even more. Time would fail me to go through the whole of chapter 11.

I’d encourage you to go back and read that. I’d encourage you to go back and read some of these stories. I would ask you, but I don’t want to embarrass anybody.

Don’t raise your hand. Maybe raise your hand in your own mind. How many of you know who Jephthah is?

Great story from the book of Judges. How many of you know the story of Barak? Great story.

Go back and read Hebrews chapter 11. And if you’re not familiar with what these people did in following God, go back and read the stories because they’re great examples. But he says, what shall I more say?

For time would fail me to tell of Gideon and of Barak and of Samson and Jephthah and David also and Samuel and of the prophets. Who through faith, all of these people in chapter 11, These people who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Now that does not mean, like I said, I mentioned last week the History Channel attributes everything in the Bible to aliens, not what it’s talking about, extraterrestrials.

little green men. It’s talking about the foreign pagan tribes that were always trying to subdue Israel. Turned to flight the armies of the aliens.

Women received their dead raised to life again. That’s a great story. And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.

Well, that’s true. And even after the Bible was written, even after Hebrews was written, there were still people, and there are still people today, who rather than rather than accept deliverance, rather than recant their faith in Christ, rather than say, no, I never knew him, are willing to undergo torture and death, all for the sake of Christ, rather than lie and say, I never knew him. They’re willing to undergo that torture, realizing that the resurrection is better than this life anyway.

What have we got to lose? That they might obtain a better resurrection. And others had a trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, Yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment.

They were stoned. They were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword. And they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy.

They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. My goodness, it lists all of these things that the saints of God have gone through. And please don’t misunderstand what I mean I said the saints of God.

I’m not using it in the Catholic sense. I’m using it in the biblical sense, indicating all of those who put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. That we’ve been sanctified and set apart by God, and he says they are mine. That’s what a saint is.

It’s not somebody who goes through a specific process and a higher class of believers. If you’re a believer in Jesus Christ this morning, you are among the saints of God. And it lists all of these things that the saints of God have gone through.

Even in the time that this was written, probably around the 60s AD. It was already in past tense, but you know what? They could have written it in future tense too and said everything that was going to take place.

We look at this today, and it’s past tense, it’s present tense for that matter. This stuff is still going on. You know what?

It will continue to go on until Christ returns. And we can look at these stories from the Bible and we can take encouragement from them. We can take challenge from them.

A lot of times, though, we look at people who are in the Bible and we forget that they were just regular people like us. Yes, they served an extraordinary God and they lived in extraordinary circumstances, but they’re people just like us. So we say, well, of course Gideon could do that.

Of course David could do that. Of course so-and-so. I could never do that.

When we look at people outside the Bible, we tend to identify them a little more with ourselves. I would encourage you, if you’ve never done so, go get a copy of Fox’s Book of Martyrs. As a matter of fact, it’s been around so long, if you can’t get your hands on a copy of it, you can probably find the full text of it on the internet somewhere.

Get you a copy of Fox’s Book of Martyrs and read what the saints of God have gone through from the time that we’re talking about until this time, what they’ve gone through. Sign up for Voice the Martyrs. They’ll send you magazines and newsletters, not just to send you these horror stories of what’s going on in other countries, but also to tell you how you can pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are in these countries around the world, who are undergoing these same things even today.

Folks, to be a Christian is not to have a perfect, easy life, but it’s to continue on and persevere because of our faith, knowing that, yes, we’re probably going to have more difficulty because of the name of Christ than we would have otherwise, but the resurrection that we are promised is far better than the life that we have here. And it lists all these people and the things that they’ve gone through, and it says, of whom the world is not worthy. And Christians are supposed to be.

Now, again, we’re not perfect. They were not perfect. They’re people just like us.

But the ideal here is that the Christians are supposed to be the most loving, the most generous, the most gracious, kind people on the face of the planet. And you know what? When we are surrendered to the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God has his fruit in our lives, love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness all of those that are listed in Galatians we will be when we are following and walking in the spirit we will be the most loving, gentle, generous you name them all and you know what the world is not worthy of it and that’s not a boastful statement to say we’re better than the world they don’t deserve us that’s not what I’m saying any goodness in us is because Christ and his Holy Spirit have put it there and yet the world is not deserving of that goodness The world doesn’t realize what it’s persecuting.

Because the world looks at the Christian and says, I hate the Christian. What they really hate is the Christ behind the Christian. And so it’s no wonder he tells us to count it all joy.

No wonder he tells us that we’re blessed. And I’m trying to remember the exact quote here from Matthew, I want to say Matthew chapter 5. Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.

Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. I think I got that right. I had to memorize that when I was in junior high school because I got picked on a lot.

Because there were things I would and wouldn’t do as a result of my faith. And I was also a nerd. So I got picked on a lot and memorized that verse to make myself feel better.

But you know what? It’s true. They only persecute us because of him.

And we should count it an honor to suffer trial and tribulation for his sake in this world. Do I enjoy it? That’s not what I’m telling you here this morning.

I don’t like it when I have difficulty any more than you do. And yet the Bible looks at it and says that the things that we go through, the world is not worthy of what it’s persecuting. They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth.

And all these having obtained a good report through faith received not the promise. This is referring specifically to the saints of the Old Testament. It says that they walked by faith and received not the promise.

Now that doesn’t mean that they never obtained salvation. The promise of God has always been for those who trusted in him, that he would deal with the problem of sin. That was the promise.

That was the promise from the days of Abraham I talked about last week. That was the promise of God going back to Genesis, promising a man who would crush the head of the serpent and whose heel would be bruised by the head of the serpent. And it goes back even further to the covering of skins where the innocent would die for the guilty.

From the earliest days of human history, God has been promising that he would deal with the problem of sin. And so when it says here they obtained not the promise, it would sound on the face of it like they just died and didn’t obtain salvation, didn’t get to go to heaven. Now, people were saved in the Old Testament the same way they’re saved in the New Testament and after.

They’re saved by the shed blood of Jesus Christ and putting their faith in what he accomplished. But what it’s talking about here is that they did not live to see the promise fulfilled. It doesn’t mean that they didn’t get the result of the promise.

The Bible says in the New Testament that Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Well, that’s all he needed was that faith. The Bible says he was justified by faith.

Justified but not in heaven? No, that would mean God could justify us but not justify us enough. What it’s meaning here is that they did not live long enough to see the promise fulfilled.

It was fulfilled for them, but they didn’t live long enough to see it. I go back to Simeon, who I talked about just a few weeks ago. Simeon who saw Jesus when he came to be dedicated in the temple when he was eight days old.

And he said, I can die in peace because my eyes have seen the salvation of the Lord. That’s what it means, that he got to see the promise fulfilled. Now the promise was fulfilled for these other saints, they just didn’t get to live long enough to actually see it with their earthly eyes being fulfilled.

These having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us. Folks, we still turn to Jesus Christ in faith, but we have the benefit of looking back in faith where they had to look forward in faith. Yes, we have to put our faith in Jesus Christ, not knowing what things are going to be like going forward, just trusting in what he said about heaven and eternal life, but we get to look back and see how the promise was fulfilled at Calvary, that the problem of sin would be dealt with.

They had to look forward in faith, not knowing when the Messiah was going to come, how he was going to come, how God was going to provide the sacrifice. And so God has provided some better thing for us, and God has given us that extra measure of grace to be able to look back and see how the promise was fulfilled. That they without us should not be made perfect.

And what that word perfect means is complete. So many times when the word perfect is used in the Bible, it means complete. Not as we think sinless, not as we think without imperfection.

It means complete. It means lacking nothing. And what this means is that we and they will be inheritors of the same promise, that we will all be complete in Jesus Christ together.

One day when he brings this all to an end, however that’s going to look and however he’s going to do that, that we will all be complete in Christ together, and we will both have obtained the same promise in Jesus Christ. As a result of this, he says in chapter 5, chapter 5, I’m sorry, chapter 12, verse 1. We’re going back in time here. Chapter 12, verse 1.

Wherefore seeing we are encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. When he says that great cloud of witnesses, he’s referring to those that he’s just talked about in chapter 11. Those who are named and those who are unnamed.

Who did not live to see the promise fulfilled. Wherefore seeing we are also compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Because we are surrounded by these witnesses, because of those who’ve gone on before us, let us also throw aside the things that hold us back and let us run with patience, he says.

With patience. That phrase is important there. With patience.

Because the race is not always going to get easy. It’s not always going to be easy. Let us run with patience the race that is sitting before us.

I think about that race not being easy, I think about my first and to date last 5K that I ever ran. I don’t know that I’ve told you all this story. My dad is a marathon runner.

Well, up to this point, he’s a half marathon runner. He’s going to run the full Oklahoma City Marathon in April. He’s been running for a few years now, and back around, I want to say 2008, 2009, February 2009, he asked me to run a 5K.

That date is etched in my mind because it was a horrible day. He asked me to run a 5K with him, which is a little over three miles there in Norman. And I went.

We got up early. The sun wasn’t even awake yet. We got up early, and we went out to the starting line there at Brookhaven Square in Norman, and we set out to run this 5K.

And I’m a fast walker, and I can walk fast long distances and thought, okay, this won’t be a problem. Had not trained for it at all. Y’all already see where this is going.

We were toward the end of the group of people starting. And they fired off the starting pistol or blew the whistle or whatever they did. I don’t actually remember that.

There was a group of guys from the Navy who were all running as a group. And we thought, okay, big group, they’re not going to just take off and run as fast as they can. like some of these people were in this to qualify for other.

. . Apparently you have to qualify to run like the Boston Marathon.

Really? Just go run. I run and my reward is I have to go run more.

Now, some of those people just take off. We thought these Navy guys, yeah they’ll probably keep up a brisk pace but I can’t see them taking off full throttle. Well, we followed them and we kept up with them through about the first K.

And I’m huffing and puffing, and I kept up a pretty brisk pace for that first K. And we got to the end of that first kilometer, and I wanted to die. I was looking for a place to curl up and die.

I told Dad, run ahead and save yourself. Just go. Just go.

And I limped, and I staggered through the second K. Got to the end of the second kilometer, I don’t want to do this anymore. I got passed by a pregnant woman.

And I thought, I don’t want to do this anymore. And my dad, being the gentleman that he is, I got to the beginning of the third kilometer, and he was there waiting for me. He had decided to take a water break and wait for me.

So I got up there. I don’t want to do this, but I can’t go back and tell everybody that I didn’t finish. And there were times during that 5K When I got passed by the pregnant lady, when I got passed by the family with the two-seat stroller, the guy in the wheelchair, I wanted to quit.

I wanted to just go back to the starting line and get in the fetal position and cry. But you know, there comes a point where you have to run with patience and go, okay, this race is not going the way I thought it was going to go. This is not working out.

My dreams of finishing this race right behind the Navy guys, it’s not happening. And you just have to keep going, whether you want to or not, whether you feel like it or not. And it took me forever.

And guys, I’m not bragging telling this story. I think it’s funny. It’s not one of my best moments.

I was the last person to finish the race who was not in a wheelchair. and when I came down the finishing stretch they’re yelling, clear the track, we’re ready to start the next race and that’s been my first and up to this point only 5k that I’ve done with him but I got less than half way in I don’t want to do this anymore you know what, it’s going to be almost as much effort to go back at this point as it is to finish the race and so I’m just going to keep walking, jogging when I can and further along in the race, I don’t want to do this anymore. It doesn’t matter.

Keep going. And I understand a little better now why Paul, we don’t know that it’s Paul, whoever wrote the book of Hebrews, there are all sorts of suspects. But I understand better now why the writer of Hebrews uses the metaphor of running a race because you’re going to get two K’s into it.

I don’t want to do this anymore. Can somebody just airlift me back to the starting line. In the Christian life, we’re going to get two or three Ks into it.

It’s hard now. I don’t want to do this anymore. It was fun the first kilometer of the race when I was keeping up with the tough guys, but now it’s really hard and I don’t want to do this anymore.

Run with patience, he says. Persevere. Keep going.

Yeah, you may have to slow down. You may have to, you may have to, I’m not saying take a break as in I’m out for a little while, but you may have to rest every now and then. but we run with patience and endurance and perseverance the race that’s set before us.

Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. You know what? It’s going to get hard in that race sometimes.

Just keep your eyes on Jesus and keep running toward Him. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Think about this if you’ve never thought about this before.

Because they’ve just compared it to a race that sometimes we don’t want to finish. And they say, look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And then he says something very interesting.

Who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame. We can look back at the gospel accounts and see that Jesus, in his human nature, didn’t always feel like finishing the race. didn’t always feel up to finishing the race.

As a matter of fact, he prayed to the Father and says, if there’s any other way to accomplish this, the night before the crucifixion, if there is any other way, let this cup pass from me. In other words, Father, if there is any other way to save them, let me do that. Father, is there a plan B here?

I’ll take it. I’ll do whatever. But he says, nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done.

And he did that not only because it was the will of his Father, but ladies and gentlemen, it says here that he did it. He endured the cross, despising the shame for the joy that was set before him. This knowledge, remember, he was God, right?

Fully man, fully God. He knew what was coming at the cross. He knew what was coming on the other side.

And that there was going to come a time where he would be able to sit down on the right hand of God the Father once again in the knowledge that he had done what he had come to do and that he’d wipe the slate clean for all of us. That he’d shed the blood that was necessary for the remission of our sins. And the joy that is experienced in heaven every time a sinner trusts in Jesus Christ. Every time a sinner goes from death to life.

Every time a sinner goes from darkness to light is translated from the kingdom of what the Bible calls the God of this world, into the kingdom of God’s Son. The joy in heaven. And Jesus, for the joy that was set before him, this opportunity to sit back down at the right hand of his Father, knowing he’d done everything he was supposed to do, and he was able to save those he came to seek and to save, those who were lost. And the joy on the other side of that gave him the patience, I believe, to continue to run the race that he had to run, to endure the cross, despising the shame.

for consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds ye have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin so the ultimate example we have in the Christian life is of Christ himself and yes we can say well sure it was easy for him he’s God Yes, he was God, but he was also man. He was fully God and fully man. And not one of us in our human nature today would want to go through what he went through.

Not just, ladies and gentlemen, not just the crucifixion itself, not just the scourging before, not just the physical torment that he suffered on the cross in order to be obedient to his Father, but also the separation from God. I still can’t wrap my mind around that. I understand, I believe, why he cried out on the cross, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Now, had God the Father really forsaken him? Depends on what you mean by forsaken. But the Bible says he took our sins on himself.

And the Bible also teaches us that God the Father in his holiness, in his perfection, cannot coexist with sin. cannot have fellowship with sin. That’s why for us to have fellowship and peace with Him, we have to be covered in the righteousness of Christ. And yet Christ, who knew no sin, the Bible says, the one who knew no sin for the first time bore the weight of sin.

And not His own sin, not the sin of one person, but the sin of all of us. Every person, past, present, and future, who has ever lived, He took their sin on Himself. You know when you mess up and you sin against God and you feel like you’ve disappointed him over something you’ve done, one thing you’ve done.

Oh, I know that feeling all too well. At that weight and that guilt and the gravity of that sin. Imagine that magnified billions and billions of times.

And the weight of that sin fell on him all at once. And for the first time, God had to turn his back on God. That’s the part I don’t understand, how that works.

But imagine what he went through. And then tell me it was easy because he was God. And the writer of Hebrews tells us, keep going because you have not yet strived against blood.

You’ve not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. If we’re just feeling the difficulty of, I don’t want to do this, it’s just too hard. He refers us back to Jesus.

And he refers us back to the other saints who have gone before us, those who have been tortured and those who have been killed, and says you’ve not yet resisted unto blood. We’ve not yet given our lives. We’ve not yet been tortured.

We don’t know what hard is when it comes to the Christian life. And so he says, keep going. And that’s not to put you down.

That’s not to put me down. That’s just to say, we don’t know. It could be worse.

We don’t know what it’s like to have gone through what they went through. And the best example we have in the Christian life is of Christ himself. And so it tells us to look to that example.

It says, throw aside the weight that does so easily beset you. You know what? But when it says weight, that’s not even necessarily a bad thing.

Now, it does talk about the sin that does so easily beset you. But it says lay aside every weight. You know what?

That could be good things. There could be good things that we’re involved in that are slowing us down from what’s best, which is the pursuit of running this race of the Christian life. There are things that we get tied up in that are not necessarily bad things.

Every time I read this passage, I think of a story that I read a few years ago about the Choktaus hundreds of years ago. I don’t even know how long ago the story took place because it was before written history. It was just kind of passed down orally.

That they would carry the bones of their ancestors. They would, and this part, I’m sorry, this part grosses me out a little bit. They would boil the bones of the ancestors to get all the flesh off.

and then they would bundle the bones together and they would carry them with them as they moved from place to place hunting. They were nomadic at that point and as they would go from one hunting area to the next, they would carry the bones with them as a memorial to their ancestors. And before, you know, at some point, it got to where, okay, we’ve got a lot of bones that we’re carrying around with us.

Now, there may have been spirit worship involved in it. That was not a good thing. Remembering your ancestors is not a bad thing.

Okay, that part in and of itself is not a bad thing. But they realize this is really slowing us down. This is getting to be a burden, carrying all these bones around with us.

And the story goes that they followed until they were, I don’t know how much of this is true, how much of this to believe. I’m just telling you the story I read because it corresponds. They followed this stick that every night would point in a direction they were supposed to follow.

And then when it stood upright, they knew that’s where they were supposed to stop. and they built a huge earth mound and buried the bones of their ancestors in it. So they would always know where to go back to to memorialize their ancestors, but they didn’t have to carry the weight around with them anymore.

Now paying tribute to those who’ve gone on before us is not a bad thing. And yet for them it was a weight that grew burdensome and slowed them down as they were trying to do what they needed to do. Now we can be involved in things that are not bad, but they slow us down and distract us from what’s best. And this is a good time of year.

I’m not really into New Year’s resolutions because I can lie to myself the rest of the year. I don’t need a special time of year to tell myself I’m going to do things that I’m not going to do. But we can’t escape the fact that this is a time of year when people stop and take stock of their lives just naturally and say, what am I doing?

What do I