Amen.
You may be seated, kids.
You are excused to your King's Kids class.
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 faint-hearted, so that you wouldn't give up.
May God bless the hearing of his word.
Distracted drivers are dangerous.
A danger to themselves and a danger to others.
A distracted driver is someone who takes their eyes off the road and fixes their eyes on something else.
Maybe it's their phone.
Maybe it's their companion next to them.
Maybe it's a French fry that has fallen to the floor.
Maybe it's an accident on the other side of the road.
You're part of the gaper's delay.
Maybe it's a good thought.
Distracted drivers are a danger to themselves and others, and they need to fix their eyes on the road.
Distracted Christians are also a danger.
Danger to themselves and a danger to others.
There are a variety of things that can distract Christians from Christ,
and one of which that we are hearing again and again in the book of Hebrews
is suffering on account of Christ.
Being marginalized for Jesus.
That can cause you to become weary and faint hearted.
Want to give up.
When you get distracted from Christ, you tend to drift from Christ.
And in some cases, you can actually fall away from Christ.
Where there was no faith to begin with.
It's a disaster.
In Hebrews chapter 12, the author likens the Christian faith to an endurance race.
To a marathon.
In order for you, Christian, to finish the race and to finish strong, you need endurance.
Don't give up.
You need to endure.
And in Hebrews 12, 1 through 3, we're shown how to finish the race and finish strong in four ways.
First is run the legacy.
Second, run light.
Third, run long.
Fourth, run looking.
Those last three I heard in a sermon about 30 years ago.
Stuck with me ever since.
So, four points this morning.
Run the legacy.
Run light.
Run long.
Run looking.
Do you want to finish the race?
And finish strong?
Eyes on Jesus.
So, let's look at this first point.
We'll see it in Hebrews 12, 1.
Run the legacy.
We read, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.
The cloud of witnesses that the author of Hebrews is talking about here are all of those 20 plus saints of old.
Those people of old commended by God for their faith that we were looking at last week in Hebrews chapter 11.
They are the cloud of witnesses.
They're the ones commended by God for their faith.
They finished the race that God had set before him.
They endured by trusting God and his promises.
It's a cloud of witnesses.
The original word for witness is the word martyr.
That's where you get the word martyr from.
And when we think of martyr, we think of people who give up their lives out of believing in Jesus and proclaiming him.
And so, what we're getting at here are these, this cloud of witnesses are those who bore witness to God to their last breath.
That they believe in him and they believe in his promises.
They were faithful all the way to the end.
So, what's happening here in Hebrews 12, 1.
Is that the author is making a connection between old covenant saints and new covenant saints.
Those commended by God.
We're being linked to Abel and Enoch and Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Daniel, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah.
All of these commended by God for their faith who've gone before us.
We're being connected to them.
Linked to them.
They're the heroes of the faith.
The who's who of the faith.
Faith.
And they have left for us a legacy of faith.
A legacy is something that those who've gone before us entrust us with.
And what the kind of the heroes of the faith of chapter 11 have entrusted to us is an example of endurance by faith.
In chapter 11, verse 40.
We learn that apart from us, these Old Testament saints will not be made perfect.
Their salvation as ours was found in Christ alone.
Theirs by faith in what Christ would do.
And ours by faith alone in what Christ has done.
We are all united by faith.
We read here that we are surrounded by this great cloud.
It's a very interesting picture.
The Ethiopian Tamaral Tola won the 2024 Olympic marathon with a time of two hours and six minutes.
Pretty quick.
If you saw it, you would see that the last 100 yards of the race, it led into this massive throng.
A cloud of spectators.
And they were cheering him on.
And he ran that last 200 yards to the end.
It was like a stadium filled with people rooting him on.
In chapter 12, verse 1, the author is picturing our holding fast to Christ as a marathon.
And we're being surrounded by those who've endured to the end.
They've gone before us and they wait for us in the heavenly city of God.
They're the ones who we've been linked to.
They're the ones who surround us.
They're the ones who are the legacy entrusted to us.
Run the legacy.
Here's two ways this makes a difference.
First is this.
In our day and age, there's a lot of pressure to signal your tribe.
Whether it's politically, progressive or conservative.
Whether it's theologically.
Whether it's ethnically.
What's going on here is, brothers and sisters, we've got a tribe.
A tribe of faith.
We're to identify with them.
We're to check the box that we are in this group.
Have you ever filled out a government form where it asks for your ethnic heritage, whether you're Caucasian or you're black or you're Hispanic or you're Asian?
Just imagine another box.
By faith.
Check.
This is who we identify with.
This is our tribe.
Tribe of faith.
Second thing this thing does is it locates us in God's story.
God has always had a gracious and glorious plan for the fullness of time to gather a people for himself from every tribe, tongue and nation in Christ.
And we're part of the story.
We're part of the unfolding story of God's plan.
We are numbered with this multitude.
We are to be part of this great cloud of witnesses unto God's grace and unto his glory.
This is the fulfillment of the promise he made to Abraham to bless all the nations of the world through his offspring whom we know is Jesus Christ.
Run the legacy.
You want to finish this race?
You want to finish strong?
Run the legacy.
The legacy of faith.
The second point in how to finish strong is you run light.
We read in verse 1,
Let us also lay aside every weight and the sin which clings so closely.
The New International Version of the Bible says,
Let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles.
Have you ever noticed a marathon runner what they wear?
When they're running the race, they don't wear much.
They usually wear like really short shorts.
Who wears short shorts?
And then they have a tank top.
And that's all that they're wearing.
On cold days, they usually put on a stocking hat and have gloves on, but that's it.
They're running light.
In fact, the Greco-Roman Olympics, which began in 776 BC,
they wore no clothing at all.
Which would boost the Olympic kind of viewership if they did that today.
But the point is,
competitors run light.
They compete light to minimize hindrances to the running the race.
They lay things aside that would distract them or hinder them.
Think about it this way.
If it is not helping you run the race for Jesus,
it's probably hindering you from running the race for Jesus.
And the author points to two different types of hindrances in this passage.
The first is every weight.
Let us also lay aside every weight.
A marathon runner may show up to the race in a full-blown body warm-up suit,
but when it's race time, he or she will take off that warm-up suit and lay it aside
because they want to run the race and run it strong.
They don't want anything hindering them from running as strong and as best as they can run.
There are things that aren't in and of themselves sinful
that become hindrances to us running the race.
Let me give you some examples.
Would you say that sleep is bad or good?
It's good.
But if your sleep habits are resulting in your neglecting your pursuit of Christ,
you've got a hindrance.
You've got to lay that aside.
It's not helping you pursue Jesus.
It's hindering you.
It's keeping you from reading the Bible, from praying unto God.
Another example would be work.
Is work good or bad?
The Bible is very clear.
Work is good.
But if you are working so much that it's resulting in you neglecting,
tending to your soul,
it's something out of proportion there.
You need to rein something in.
In our culture, one of the things that people deal with on a regular basis
is busyness as a family.
We have families who are trying to do it all,
to have all of their kids involved in as much as possible,
whether it's athletics or whether it's performance arts
or even serving at the church.
You're trying to do it all.
But over time, it is thinning you out.
Busyness.
Is it good to give yourself to important good things?
Yes, of course it is.
But you can only do a few things really well.
Do you remember back in Luke 10?
Mary and Martha.
Martha was a busy body.
She was getting everything ready because Jesus was there.
And she's like,
Jesus, would you please tell Mary to help me?
Because Mary was sitting at his feet.
And Jesus says,
Mary has chosen the better.
There are first things, brothers and sisters.
When we're thinking about weights to lay aside,
here's the question to be asking.
Is this good thing helping or hindering me run the race?
You might need to cut something out completely
or just simply rein something in a little bit.
Something's gotten away from you.
The second hindrance is outright sin.
And the sin which clings so closely
or the sin which so easily entangles.
Sin is any thought, feeling, word, or action
that contradicts God's character or His command.
It is always by nature wrong, evil,
grievous in God's sight.
And we are to lay it aside.
We're to put it off.
The picture here is not of someone
who is being necessarily hindered by something
but being tripped up by something.
Do you guys know what shackles are?
Shackles are like these steel cuffs
that will go around your wrists
and there's this chain in between
that really limits you.
They're also leg irons,
leg shackles that go cuffs on your ankles
and there's this chain in between you.
Could you imagine if Tamaral Tola,
the 2024 Olympic champion,
he came up to the marathon line,
the starting line,
with shackles on his legs?
Do you think he would finish?
Do you think he would run strong?
No.
He would need to remove the shackles
to lay them aside.
There are some sinful shackles pointed to
in Hebrews 12.
Let me point them out to you.
Later on in verse 15,
we read,
See to it that no one fails
to obtain the grace of God,
that no root of bitterness
springs up and causes trouble,
and by it many become defiled.
Bitterness is a shackle on a Christian.
And it's dangerous for them
and it's dangerous for those around them.
It defiles people.
Bitterness is holding a grudge.
It is a hardness of heart.
It is resentment.
It's blaming someone
for something that has happened
and it's this hatred.
It's hatred.
It's unloving.
It defiles the people.
And it runs in the opposite direction
of verse 14.
Strive for peace with everyone.
You are to lay it aside.
You are to put bitterness off.
You are to repent of that.
There's another shackle.
It's in verse 16.
That no one is sexually immoral
or unholy like Esau
who sold his birthright
for a single meal.
Sexual immorality is sexual sin.
Whether it's adultery,
when you have a spouse
who's been sexually unfaithful
or fornication,
when you have two unmarried people
being sexually unfaithful to God.
Pornography is this visualized sexual sin
and it is wickedly wrong.
What makes this so grievous in God's sight
is it runs against the grain
of his good design of marriage.
This sexuality that he has given us as a gift
is to be enjoyed
in the context of marriage alone.
And when we seek to experience
and enjoy sexuality
outside of the good confines of marriage,
it's grievous in God's sight.
These are shackles.
These will hold you back
from running the race
and it will affect other people.
And then of course,
there's unbelief.
If you,
Amy actually referenced this
when she was praying moments ago.
In Hebrews 3, 12 and 13,
we read this.
Take care, brothers,
lest there be in any of you
an evil, unbelieving heart
leading you to fall away
from the living God.
But exhort one another every day
as long as it's called today
that none of you may be hardened
by the deceitfulness of sin.
Unbelief is a denying of who God is
and what he's done.
And you're to put that off.
That will shackle you.
So here we have shackles
that will immobilize you
as you seek to run for Christ.
You gotta put them off.
I've been praying
that God would put his finger
on something in our lives.
Has God been putting something,
his finger on something
in your life?
Some weight
that you need to lay aside,
some sin that you need to repent of?
That's his loving kindness to you.
He wants you to share
in his holiness.
And he wants you to run the race.
He wants you to finish the race
and finish strong.
So receive that
and turn from these things.
Lay them aside.
When we run,
we run the legacy,
we run light,
and the third point
is that we run long.
In 12.1 we read,
and let us run with endurance
the race that is set before us.
Eugene Peterson,
a title to his book,
helps with a definition.
Endurance is a long obedience
in the same direction.
Endurance is the ability
to press on
in the face of difficulty.
Endurance is not giving up.
It's not quitting.
It's not falling away
or folding like a cheap suit.
Endurance is pressing on.
It's getting back up
and moving forward
unto Christ.
It's holding fast to Christ
all the way to the end.
Your very last breath.
And if you're a Christian,
and you're seeking
to live by faith,
it's just a matter of time
before your faith,
your life,
will get challenged.
Before you'll be marginalized.
You will need to endure that.
You'll need to press through that
by faith.
We got a baptism coming up
in August,
and we have a good group
of people,
like I mentioned,
being baptized.
It's down at Eichelman.
It's highly public.
And anyone who comes out
in the water,
I'm going to ask them
two questions.
First question is this.
Have you put your faith
in Jesus Christ alone
for the forgiveness
of your sin
and the promise
of eternal life?
Yes.
The second question
is the endurance question.
It's the finish
the race question.
It goes like this.
Have you resolved
to follow Jesus
all the days of your life,
no matter what happens?
Are you going to finish
the race?
As far as it depends on you,
trusting in the living God?
Yes.
We baptize him.
Endurance.
The opposite of endurance,
of an enduring faith,
an endurance by faith,
is a falling away
because of unbelief.
faith.
Remember,
faith is like a muscle.
And if your faith
goes unused,
it atrophies.
But with use,
your muscles,
faith muscles,
strengthen,
and you are able
to press through hard things
by faith,
trusting in God's character,
trusting in his promise.
It's by use.
endurance.
This is endurance.
And we are to run
with endurance
the race that God
has set before us.
It's his paths
that he's laid out
before us.
It's a path,
a race for us to run.
He's laid it out.
He's laid it out
according to his word.
And we are to finish
and to finish strong.
God sets this race
before us.
It's a path of faith.
Nowhere does he promise to us
that this race
is going to be easy
and comfortable.
Nowhere.
In fact,
if it's anything,
he duly warns us
Jesus said
at the end of John 16,
in the world,
you will have tribulation.
You will have difficulty
on account of me.
You know,
we sing a song,
Amazing Grace,
and there's this line,
through many dangers,
toils, and snares,
I have already come.
Brothers and sisters,
that's just normal.
Through many dangers,
toils, and snares,
blessed be your name
in a world
that is marked by suffering.
We just sang it.
You'll be marginalized
by being a follower of Jesus.
Don't be surprised by it.
Rejoice in it.
Just like Paul and Silas
rejoiced in the Philippian jail.
Now,
this is an endurance race.
In September,
I'm going to preach
three sermons
on Psalm 23.
I can't wait.
The Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want.
He makes me
lie down
and greet pastures.
He leads me
beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
Verse 3.
And then it says,
He leads me
in paths of righteousness
for His name's sake.
He's got a race
set out for us.
And then verse 4.
Even though I walk
through the valley
of the shadow of death,
the deep darks,
I shall feel no evil
for you are with me.
Even David knew.
Being a follower
of God
in the paths
that God had set
would lead through
deep darks,
hardship,
difficulty,
suffering on account
of Jesus for us.
He does not promise
ease and comfort.
Hardship and difficult
will surely come.
We must endure.
Not giving up,
not quitting,
pressing on.
You're going to have
some hard decisions
to make.
What are you going
to do
when your
gay nephew
invites you
to come to his
gay wedding?
What are you going
to do?
What does it look like
to walk by faith
there?
Because in God's eyes,
it's not a wedding.
Students,
what do you do
when your classmates
are cheating
on their schoolwork?
what do you do?
What does it look like
to walk by faith?
It might mean
getting marginalized,
taking some heat.
He doesn't promise
ease and comfort
to those who walk
uprightly.
But the thing is,
we get to do this
together.
We run this race
together.
We're like a pack.
Remember the chariots
of fire,
those guys
and runners
and white
on the beach
in England
running
together?
If you look back
at Hebrews 10,
24 and 25,
I'm going to read
this,
but be thinking
in terms of
running the race.
And let us
consider how to
stir up one another
to love and good works,
not neglecting
to meet together
as is the habit
of some,
but encouraging
one another.
And all the more
as you see the day
drawing near.
As you're running
the race together
and gathering
together every Sunday,
be encouraging
one another
as you see
that day
approaching
when Jesus
comes back.
our Sunday
gathering
is an encouraging
gathering.
It's encouragement.
It is strength
for your soul
to press on.
We do this
together.
Do you want to
finish the race
and finish strong?
You need to run
long
with endurance.
The race marked out
and we do that
together.
One last point.
We run looking.
In verse 2,
we read
looking to Jesus.
In verse 3,
we read
consider him,
Jesus,
who endured
from sinners
such hostility
against himself
so that you
may not grow weary
or faint hearted.
You know,
there's just a general
principle in life.
It goes something
like this.
You move
in the direction
to which you're looking.
You move
to where you're looking.
Whether you're
driving a car
or riding a bike
or running a marathon,
if you look over
your left shoulder,
typically you're going
to move a little left,
right?
Or if you look over
your right shoulder,
you're going to move
a little right.
The general principle
is you move
to where you're looking.
Spiritually speaking,
your looking
aims your living.
you live for
what you're looking
at.
If you're fixing
your eyes,
scrolling,
scrolling for new
purchases,
again and again
and again,
you make the purchase
and you're scrolling
for a new purchase,
you're looking
and your living
follows.
If you're fixated
on something
that's happened
in your past
and you're just
looking and looking
and looking at it,
it's like trying
to move forward,
but you're just
staring in the
rearview mirror,
you're going to be
living in the past.
If you're fixated
on illicit images,
you're setting
your heart
on these things.
You're living
for that
which gives
no life.
They're broken,
empty sin cisterns.
There's no life
in these things.
we're told to lay
these things aside.
There's no life.
They distract us
from Christ.
They're impostors.
If you're a Christian,
but not regularly
looking to Jesus,
and what I mean by that
is this.
Have you ever heard
someone say,
every one look
at sin,
you look ten looks
at Jesus.
every one look
at this past wrong
that you need
to work through,
you need to take
ten at Jesus.
It's that kind
of looking.
If you're not
looking to Jesus,
you're going to be
looking at something
else.
There's dangers there.
There's the danger
of drift.
That word looking,
looking to Jesus,
has a very interesting
nuance to it.
it means to purposefully
stop looking at one thing
and to start looking
at another.
To very intentionally,
to consciously,
purposefully,
take your eyes off
one thing
and put your eyes
on another.
I've got a confession.
Sometimes I come home
from a hard day
of pastoring.
And I walk
in the side door
and I grab
the mail
and I walk
into the kitchen
and sometimes
Jenny's there
and we'll start
talking about our day.
But you know
what I'm doing?
I'm looking
at the mail.
Jenny's asking
me about my day.
Yeah,
huh,
huh.
But I'm,
I'm looking
at an AARP
letter.
Do you know
what I've got to do?
I've got to lay it aside.
And I need to fix
my eyes on Jenny.
And I need to be there.
Does this make sense?
I've got to take
my eyes off one thing
and put my eyes
on another.
In order for you
to finish the race
and finish strong,
you need to learn
and practice
turning your eyes
from lesser things
in order to fix
your eyes
on the greatest
treasure of all,
Jesus.
Eyes
on
Jesus.
And in verses
two and three,
the author gives us
some things about
Jesus to look at.
We've got a couple
titles,
a couple places,
and one example.
the two titles,
essentially two titles
are these.
Looking to Jesus,
the founder and
perfecter of your faith.
Maybe the founder
and finisher
of your faith.
Two titles.
The founder,
the originator
of the faith
of our salvation.
Jesus.
The finisher,
the perfecter,
the completer
of our salvation.
Jesus,
all of Christianity,
begins and
ends
with Jesus.
He is our
everything.
He is
our salvation.
If you're familiar
with Revelation,
in Revelation 22,
13,
Jesus says this
about himself,
I am the alpha
and the omega,
the first and the last,
the beginning
and the end.
And if you don't know
the Greek alphabet,
it starts with alpha
and ends with omega.
He's the beginning
and the end.
It's all about Jesus.
Have you ever heard
the song,
He's got the whole world.
We can adjust
that a little bit
to Jesus singing,
saying of Jesus,
He's got our whole
salvation in His hands.
He's the beginning
and the end.
These are two titles.
Now let's look
at the two places.
Looking to Jesus,
the founder and perfecter
of our faith
who for the joy
that was set before Him
endured the cross.
Place number one,
the place of His humiliation
and our salvation.
That place,
the cross,
was a shameful way to die.
It was the Romans.
They designed crucifixion
to be the most shameful
and painful experience
anyone can experience
to die.
It was incredibly painful
physically,
emotionally,
and socially.
It was shameful.
You died naked,
suffering greatly.
But for Jesus,
on that cross,
He bore God's wrath
for our sin
once for all.
At the cross,
He founded
our salvation.
Despising the shame.
Whatever.
He had a place
of His grace
and is seated
at the right hand
of the throne of God.
His place of exaltation
where He is now.
Sitting on His throne,
welcoming all
that comes to us
at the cross.
He's the source,
founder of our salvation.
On the throne,
Psalm 110.1,
He is sustaining us.
He's perfecting us.
He's finishing
what He started.
He's pouring out grace.
It's Hebrews 4,
14 through 16.
Do you have a need?
You make a beeline
to the throne of grace.
And He will give you grace
in that time of need
to sustain you
so that you endure
to the end.
He gives us grace
upon grace.
It's a beauty.
He's the founder
of our salvation cross.
He's the finisher
of our salvation throne.
But in verse 3,
we have an example.
Consider Him
who endured from sinners
such hostility
against Himself.
You see,
not only is Jesus
the source
of our salvation,
He is the ultimate example
of finishing the race.
It's all of Hebrews 11
climaxes in Jesus
as the greatest example
of endurance
who finished doing
God's will
at great cost.
He was mocked,
beaten,
unjustly convicted,
imprisoned,
humiliated,
put to death
the ultimate example
of endurance,
such hostility
against Himself.
And it's there
so you don't grow weary
or faint-hearted
as you pursue Him.
You know why He did it?
For the joy set before Him.
It could have been
the exaltation
of the throne.
I think it's more likely
that it's the joy
of bringing many sons
and daughters to glory.
Of gathering for Himself
a people from every tribe,
tongue, and nation.
A people that have been
flipped by God's grace
and delivered from
the domain of darkness
and transferred into
the kingdom of the beloved Son.
And it's us
around the throne
with all of those
who've gone before us
singing the praises of God
for what He has done.
That joy,
all of the blood bought
of God,
gathered together
for eternity
in the city of heaven,
which He's prepared for us.
We become part of
His great cloud
of witnesses.
He's the one to whom
we fix our eyes on.
We run looking to Him.
Do you need help
looking to Jesus?
I do.
To help you
lay aside
every weight in sin
and fix your eyes
on Jesus,
do you need help?
Of course.
prioritize coming
on Sunday.
Prioritize gathering together.
It's God's good design.
It's a habit of grace
that we endure together
by gathering together.
Another way to,
for help,
you're going to get
an email this afternoon
from me.
And what I do is
I lay out this week,
Monday through next Sunday,
and I give you something
from the Bible
to fix your eyes upon.
It would be great
for you to start
your day that way.
It would be great
if you've been looking
for something to do
devotionally with your family,
to be in God's Word,
to fix your eyes on Jesus,
to pray together.
This would be
an easy start.
You'll get that
at one o'clock
this afternoon.
But here's a way
that has helped me
this week.
Parents,
use your discretion
with your kids.
it's writing something.
On my left index finger,
earlier this week,
I've been writing
E-O-J.
Eyes on Jesus.
So whatever I'm doing
that day,
driving,
eating,
working on things,
eyes on Jesus.
it's been so helpful.
I can,
I look to Him
throughout the day.
We must finish the race
and finish strong.
Run the legacy,
run light,
run long,
run looking to Jesus.
Distracted drivers
need to keep their eyes
on the road.
Christians prone
to distraction,
and that's all of us,
need to learn
to fix our eyes
on Jesus.
Eyes on Jesus.
Let's pray together.
Lord Jesus,
we do acknowledge
that You are
exalted
at the right hand
of God right now,
the throne,
and You give grace
to those in need.
and we are
in ongoing need.
We need You.
You are everything.
You are
the beginning
and the end,
the alpha
and the omega.
Would You
sustain us
this week?
Would You help us
to look to You
with eyes of faith
and endure
to the end
day by day?
In Jesus' name
we pray.
Amen.