Running The Race
Hebrews 12:1-3
Our generation is generation that loves sports. Many of you ladies can identify with the wife who was told by her husband, "Honey, now before football season starts, is there anything you would like to say to me?"
If the Apostle Paul were alive today, he would no doubt read the sports pages of the newspaper and follow the progress of various teams and athletes. Those who are familiar with the epistles of the Apostle Paul are fully aware of his frequent use of athletic references in his writings. He referred to boxing, wrestling, and in our text to running.
Paul writes in Hebrews to a group of persecuted, beaten down, discouraged Hebrew believers and encourages them to keep moving forward in the Christian lives.
Now there are some of the same things which are essential to being victorious in a race are also key to being victorious in our Christian life.
I want us to look at some of these essentials.
I. Faith is required
Notice Paul says that we that are in this race are "compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses.”
Who are these witnesses? These witnesses are those who have come before us, have run the race, and have completed it! They are examples to us as to how to successfully and victoriously run this race!
We find many of them listed in chapter 11 which is often referred to as "The Hall of Faith."
We are all creatures of inspiration. We need a reason for doing things, and we need encouragement while we are doing them. One of the greatest inspirations and comforts should be all the believers from the past who have gone before us.
They are "witnesses." Not watching us as we perform. The idea is not that we should faithful lest they are disappointed. They are examples not onlookers. They have proved by their life that the live of faith is the only life to live. The same God who was their God is our God. The God of yesterday is the God of today and tomorrow.
The first essential element to running this race is what the witnesses in chapter 11 have testified to - Faith.
A. We must have faith to enter the race.
The Christian life begins by placing faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross. It is through faith in his shed blood and His resurrection that we enter the race.
B. We must have faith to endure in the race.
1. There will be hurdles.
2. There will be hindrances.
3. There will be hurts.
Endurance is essential to those participating in a race, and endurance is key to Christian living. There will always be hurdles or obstacles to overcome. We will always run into things or people or circumstances that will seek to hinder us in our Christian living. To endure, faith is essential. Faith is not only essential to enter the race, but it is essential to be able to endure while in this race.
C. We must have faith to be effective in the race.
Whether or not we run well, our race will be dependent upon our faith in God.
Faith in God will keep us going when we feel like quitting! To be victorious, to be effective as a believer in this world that we now live in....faith is incidental but essential
II. Freedom Is required.
In the Grecian games to which Paul here refers, all bodily hindrances had to be laid aside.
Likewise, heavenly runners must lay aside all weights within and without that would hinder spiritual progress, and by disciplined elimination refuse to allow anything that would hinder our running.
We need freedom from:
A. The weights that encumber us - "let us lay aside every weight"
One of the greatest problems runners face is weight.
A man once went to the doctor with back trouble. After examine the patient the doctor said, "You are not having back trouble. You are having front trouble." What he was saying is simply the excess weight is causing you the problem.
1. Call to discern what impedes us -
The weight that could constrict us is not necessarily bad in itself. Often it is something perfectly innocent and harmless. However it weighs us down, diverts our attention, saps our energy, dampens our enthusiasm for the things of God.
A winning runner does not choose between the good and the bad, but between the better and the best.
The problem is not in what the weight is, but in what the weight does. It keeps us from running well. A weight is something that is lawful, but yet it is not helpful. All that does not help, hinders!
2. Courage to discard what impedes us - "lay aside"
This suggests something which must be thrown off like a garment. We must out it off. It takes discipline to be a winning runner.
J. Wilbur Chapman once said, "My life is governed by this rule: Anything that dims my vision of Christ or takes away my taste for Bible study, or cramps my prayer life or makes Christian work difficult is wrong for me, and I must, as a Christian, turn away from it."
B. The wickedness that entangles us - "the sin that doth so easily beset us"
Every weight is that which encumbers us; the sin is that which entangles us. The weight is the unnecessary things, and the sin is the unrighteous things.
"Beset us" - means to place itself around us. The sin is that which will trip us up and bind our progress.
Now obviously all sin hurts our running the Christian life, but the use of the definite article (the) seems to indicate a particular sin. If there is one particular sin that hinders the Christian life, it is unbelief, doubting God. Unbelief entangles the Christian feet so that he cannot run. It wraps itself around us so that we trip and stumble every time we try to make progress for the Lord.
Unbelief was the sin that tripped up Israel and robbed a whole generation of the joys of the Promised Land. Unbelief arises from our unwillingness to step out upon the promises of God.
Faith enables but unbelief tangles.
C. The witnesses that enthrall us - “run with patience the race that is set before us”
Sometimes we can get so taken up with the witnesses and the race they ran that we lose sight of the race that is before us. We should run the race that is set before us. We cannot run somebody else’s race. We do not choose the course; God chooses the course that each of us is run.
Our race is not against each other. We are not in competition against each other.
Two campers were hiking in the forest when all of a sudden a huge bear jumped out from behind a bush and starting chasing them. Both campers started running for their lives. Suddenly one of them stopped, pulled a pair of running shoes out of his backpack and started putting them on. His partner said, "Those won’t help you outrun a bear." He looked at him and said, "I don’t have to outrun the bear. I only have to outrun you."
We must be free from trying to outrun each other. We must be free from attempting to run the race that was given to someone else. Run in your own lane; stay in your own lane. We will be rewarded if we run the race God has set for us and not the race He has set for someone else.
III. Focus Is Required
“Looking unto Jesus”
In running where you look is extremely important. Nothing will throw you off your stride or slow you down than looking at your feet or the runner coming behind you or the crowds in the stands. The Christian life is very much just like this.
Focus is so important.
A. Note the direction of our gaze
We are not to focus on the crowd but on Jesus. The Christian life commenced with a look to Jesus, and it will culminate with a look to Jesus. In the in between time it is to be continued with looking to Jesus.
The Greek word for “looking” that is used here occurs only this once in the New Testament and denotes the focused attention which shuts out all other distracting objects. While we may derive inspiration for the race from others, we imitate only one – Jesus Himself.
Be constantly "looking" to Him, trustfully, submissively, hopefully, expectantly.
The more we are "looking unto Jesus" the easier will it be to "lay aside every weight." It is at this point so many fail. The most effective way of getting a child to drop any dirty or injurious object, is to offer him something better. The best way to make a tired horse move more quickly, is not to use the whip, but to turn his head toward home! So, if our hearts be occupied with the sacrificial love of Christ for us, we shall be "constrained" thereby to drop all that which displeases Him.
B. Note the dependence on His grace
He is our example and empowerment.
During the first World War there was a British soldier who lost his nerve and felt he could no longer remain in the front lines. He deserted in the middle of the night somewhere in France or Belgium and began to make his way toward the coast hoping to find a way back to England. The night was dark and there was a thick fog; as a result, he lost his way. He came to a cross roads and what he thought was a signpost. He climbed it and struck a match to see what it said. As he hung on the cross bar with one hand and lifted the match with the other he found himself looking into the face of Christ. He had climbed up a large crucifix that had been erected at that cross roads. That vision of Christ on the cross changed his heart and renewed his courage. He went back to the front lines and back to his friends.
Are you tempted to give up and give in? Are you tempted to throw in the towel and call it quits? Let me encourage you to look to Jesus.
Conclusion
A fable as it that a certain dog used to boast frequently of his ability to outrun anything on four legs. One dy the dog was chasing a rabbit, but was unable to catch up with it. His friends chided him for his failure. Explaining himself the dog said, “The rabbit was running for its life; I was only running for my dinner.” Christian, are you serious about the race.
If so faith is needed, freedom is needed, and focus is needed.
