Go for the Gold
The Olympics: If you have ever watched the Olympics on TV. you have probably been amazed at the feats the human body is capable of doing! It has always amazed me how some of these people have spent their entire childhood preparing for a single event that in some cases is over within a few minutes! The amount of training and sacrifice is enormous...all for a single goal....a Gold medal and world wide recognition that you are the best in humanity in that particular thing!
Since we are striving toward a more eternal reward, and more important recognition by God, are we as willing to make the appropriate sacrifices and practice the necessary discipline?
This is Paul’s point in Hebrews 12. The writer has in mind the same thing that we have witnessed every 4 years, for the Olympics were taking place already in the Apostolic age.
This morning is our second in the series called "Go For The Gold." If you are going to become a spiritual champion you must throw off all that hinders or entangles!
Don’t Let Anything Slow You Down
Hebrews 12:1
“…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles…”
Runners wear very little. They avoid anything that might distract or hinder them in their efforts. So those competing in the spiritual race need to REMOVE THE THINGS THAT HINDER.
Think for a minute (shudder!) about your winter overcoat. It’s heavy & cumbersome. It’s a good piece of clothing to have - when it’s cold outside.
Now think about all the joggers you have ever seen – or about yourself if you are a runner.
Runners put aside everything that could possibly hinder them. They don’t want anything to keep them from reaching their goal.
Can you imagine trying to run while wearing that winter overcoat of yours? You wouldn’t last more than a few hundred yards at the most. The thought is unbearable!
That’s what the writer of Hebrews is saying. Those things that hinder us, whatever they might be, throw them off! If you are going to finish the race you have to willing to get rid of whatever slows you down.
Get Rid of the Extra Weight! A more literally rendering of the Greek word here translated as “hinders” is weight. The RSV says, “let us also lay aside every weight.”
The ancient athletes used to practice running with weights strapped to them kind of like the modern ankle and wrist weights that you may see some people use today. The idea was to build up their strength during their training. Of course they would lay aside these weights when it was time to actually compete. What would help them during training by building muscle would hinder them during the race by slowing them down.
You see we need to be aware that at some point the things that have helped us can hinder us. We need to realize that at some point we may need to lay these things aside and go on without them. These things are not necessarily wrong or sinful. They just aren’t the best.
Not all of our choices are between black and white. Not all of our choices are between what is right and what is wrong. Many of our choices are between what is good and what is best. Those are the really tough choices. Sometimes we have to give up what is good to gain what is best.
Two Stepping with Rick and Donna. Several years ago Donna and took some classes to learn how to Country Line Dance and Two Stepping. It was fun because we went with a couple of other couples from church but to our amazement we watched one of the couples start going more and more until it consumed all of their available time and most of their discretionary income.
Now, there is nothing wrong with two stepping that I can see – Donna and I had a lot of fun right up until we had to learn the spins and Donna got dizzy… (She’s always been a dizzy blonde!) But when something other than God begins to consume your life – that is not good. And frankly that can be anything from drugs, booze and partying to any number of sports activities, TV surfing, Internet browsing, or anything that sucks up your time and energy and leaves nothing for God.
Summer is a time when we all travel and vacation. The kids are busy with softball, hardball, soccer, lacrosse, gymnastics, and band camp. We’re busy taking them to games, tournaments, practices sessions, work, as well as our own time to “recreate”. Be careful you don’t leave God out… You teach your children what is important by what you value in life.
Everyone ok out there?
Here is the critical question: “What is hindering you in your pursuit of God?”
Two men were riding on a tandem bike going up a steep hill. They were panting and perspiring for all they were worth as they neared the top of the hill.
The first man said, "That was a tough climb." The second man said, "It certainly was. And if I hadn’t kept the brake on, we would have slid down that hill backwards."
There are times when we need to throw off certain things that hinder our forward motion. It could be a person or persons. It could be a bad habit. It could be a bad job. It could be something secular that hinders the sacred part of our lives.
For us as a church it has been 20 acres on Willoughby Road – there was a cost but we have thrown it off…
Now I feel like I’m running without the weights!!
What is holding you back? Throw it off!!! Pursue God with the energy that he has pursued you!
All that Entangles
First: Sin will corrupt you
That is it will take something (you) and use it (you) for some purpose that is less than what it was designed for.
When a computer file is “corrupted” it is changed and made to produce false results. When water is “corrupted” it is made dirty and dangerous to the health of the one who consumes it. When you are “corrupted” you are changed from a person who God designed to excel in the good things of life into a proud, clever, killing, wicked, evil, lying, divisive individual.
That is not God’s plan for your life!
Second: Sin will control you
Romans 7:19 says this “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.”
If you let sin get into your life it will start controlling the way that you walk. It will start controlling the way that you walk. It will control your function and your motion and your body. You cannot worship or serve God freely.
When I got into trouble as a little boy my mom would pull my ear and I went where she told me to go. She’d grab my ear and I’d go even if it wasn’t where I wanted to go. That’s what sin does to a person. It starts controlling them and all of as a sudden they lose control of self. Sin starts controlling their every move. You’ve seen it. Maybe you are there in certain parts of your life.
Third: Sin will change you
When you let sin in and you let it corrupt you and control you then all of a sudden sin will start to change you. Sin will change people’s lives. It changes them not for the better but for the worse.
Frank Perritti’s book on sin talks about the stink of sin.
Fourth: Sin will conform you
Romans 12:2 “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
The world is an odd place – everyone wants to be an individual and be different but no one wants to be singled out. We live in a world of fads and conformity. People are like lemmings chasing the newest, the greatest, the best, the most promising, the most extreme and they will chase it right over the cliff and into the sea.
God is the one who sees us as an individual yet sin causes us to seek to be conformed to everyone else – and that is destructive.
We march to a different drummer. We have a different path. We fight the river of sin flowing around us.
Fifth: Sin will consume you
2 Peter 2:14 “Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin.”
They cannot cease from sin. Now, this is about more than sexual sin – this is about the spiritual adultery of our lives being given to someone or something else – rather than God.
God wants us to be committed wholly to him and nothing and no one else.
Think about it. They let one little sin in and it starts corrupting them. Then it starts controlling them and then changing their life. Then it starts conforming them to the world and lastly it consumes them.
Throw it off
John 1:9
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Confess and repent!
The Bible says that David was a man after God’s own heart. If there ever was a description of any of us I’d want mine to be just like David’s. He wanted to do what God wanted him to do. He wanted to go where God wanted him to go. He wanted to say things that God wanted him to say. Wasn’t that great? He was a good man of God. But....he was not above sin.
Psalms 51:1 “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.” He had transgressed against God. In verse 2 he said, “Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” Then in verse 3 he says, “For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.” Now listen to this in verse 10, 11 and 12. Listen to what he prayed. “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. restore unto me the joy of thy salvation...”
The amazing and exciting piece is that God will and does do that – he releases you to run and win!
In English the Olympic motto reads: “Swifter, higher, stronger.” Interestingly, the Bible also has an Olympic text.
Go for the Gold
Isaiah 40:31
They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.
