Homemade! Week 3: Partners & Pacers | Galatians 6:2 & Hebrews 3:13

Hi, it's Pastor Jonathan, and thanks for downloading the FBC El Dorado Sermon Podcast.

In today's sermon, we continue our series homemade as we look at the role the church plays in making homemade disciples.

Yeah, the church, that's where we find the support of partners and the encouragement of pacers.

I hope you enjoyed today's message.

Two weeks ago, on a brisk Saturday morning at 4 a.m., almost 700 racers gathered in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.

And the field of racers, it contained elite professionals and some adventurous amateurs.

Regardless of the racer's skill level, though, they had all trained and prepared hundreds of hours for the race that lie ahead of them because it was no ordinary race.

It wasn't a 5K, it wasn't a 10K, it wasn't a marathon.

On that morning, those 700 racers stood at the starting line of the Leadville 100.

You heard correctly, 100.

As in 100 miles.

That's why people from around the world come to Leadville every single August.

They want that challenge of running those 100 miles.

Adrian McDonald was the winner of this year's Leadville 100.

If we go to the next slide, there's Adrian McDonald crossing the finish line, and you can see his official time for the Leadville 100.

16 hours, 19 minutes, and three seconds.

If you're curious, that's a pace of 9 minutes and 47 seconds per mile for 100 miles.

In my book, that's a pretty impressive performance.

It's a performance that's a result of his lifelong dedication to training, and I think probably some serious genetic advantages.

He doesn't have short, stubby legs trying to make allow him to go 100 miles in the mountains.

Adrian's performance, though, it's not just a reflection of his hard work.

It also reflects the hard work of the team that surrounded him.

You know, it's easy to think that a race like Leadville is a solo sport.

We think it's a solo sport because the runner crosses the starting line and they cross the finish line all by themselves.

But to travel the 100 miles between the starting line and the finishing line, to run up the mountains and around the mountain lakes and up and over the passes, that requires the help of a team.

First, every runner at Leadville has partners.

These are the partners who support their teammate, their runner, at the aid stations throughout the course.

They're the people that supply the runner with uh food to eat, a change of shoes.

They uh help them with their blisters or their toes.

They make sure they're taken care of no matter what is going on.

They cook and prepare their food so they have something to eat and to fuel their body along the way.

The support of partners is absolutely necessary for anyone who wants to run and hopes to complete the Leadville 100.

But it's not just partners, they also need pacers.

If we go to the next slide, that's Adrian McDonald taking his champagne shower after his 16 hours, 19 minutes out on the course.

And I want you to notice the guy standing next to him.

You can't see it from where you're sitting, but he's got a yellow sign on his leg and it says pacer.

You see, every runner of the Leadville 100 is allowed three pacers.

Three uh runners who aren't running the official race, but are allowed to run with that official runner for a certain designated length of time.

And their primary job, what's the primary job of the pacer?

To encourage the runner.

When that runner's legs feel like lead, the pacer says, Let's go, let's keep going, just one foot in front of the other.

When the runner wants to fall asleep, yeah, runners in races like Leadville are known to fall asleep standing up while they are running in the dark.

They start weaving around and running off the trail, and so their pacer shouts, Wake Up! You're gonna hurt yourself.

Or when that runner just wants to quit, the pacer says, Just look how far you come you've come.

We've only got 35 more miles to go.

To finish the Leadville 100, every runner needs a team around them.

Every runner needs the support of partners and the encouragement of pacers.

And what's true of that race in Leadville, it's true of the race that you and I are running as well.

You may want to call it the race of life, or we could call it the race of faith.

Several times in the New Testament, the authors they compare our life and our faith to a race.

In Acts chapter 20, verse 24, the apostle Paul he bids farewell to the church at Ephesus with these words.

Acts 20:24

He says, My only aim is to finish the race.

Or Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize?

1 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

Run in such a way as to get the prize.

Or the author of Hebrews in chapter 12, verse 1 says, And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

Friends, you and I, according to God's word, we are running a race, a race that is more grueling and more challenging and will require more of us than even the Leadville 100.

And the reason we so often struggle to complete the race is because we believe the race that we're running is a solo sport.

We believe we are out there running all by ourselves.

And yes, it's true.

You will cross the starting line of this race by yourself.

Romans 10, 13 says, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, but no one can call upon the name of the Lord for you.

To cross the starting line of the race of faith means that one person puts their one faith in Jesus Christ.

And then when you cross that finishing line, you will do it by yourself.

2 Corinthians 5 10 says that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each of us may receive what is due to us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

But listen closely, you may and you will cross the starting line and the finish line by yourself.

But the many miles that separate the start from the finish, if you're gonna run those many miles, you're gonna need the help of a team.

And in the race of faith, the team that God has given to us is the local church.

Today we are continuing our current series, Home Aid.

In this series, we're examining the role of our homes, your family's home, and your church home, the role each of those homes play in the disciple-making process.

And in today's message, we're gonna focus on two of the important roles that the local church family plays in making that next batch of homemade disciples.

And like the team of every runner in the Leadville 100, our team, our church family offers you, and it offers your family the support of partners and the encouragement of pacers.

The support of partners.

That's what Paul describes really in Galatians chapter 6, verse 2.

Galatians 6:2

It says, carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Often as we run the race of faith, friends, we focus on our responsibility to God.

I am responsible to God, I should obey God, and I should honor God.

Or as Jesus says in the Gospels, I need to love God with all my heart, soul, and mind.

But Galatians chapter 6, verse 2 broadens that responsibility.

Galatians 6:2

And it says, you're not only responsible to God, you are responsible to one another.

If you are a friend and follower of Jesus, if you claim to be a disciple of Jesus, then you are called to support one another.

We must support one another because listen, we can't bear the burdens alone.

We can't.

We can't do it.

So this is the backpack that I bring to work every morning.

I'm still a kid at heart and I carry a backpack every day.

Hey, you can laugh if you want.

It's awesome.

So I carry this backpack every single day, and I'll have my laptop and my tablet in it, and papers in it for work, and books, and commentaries, that things I'm working on.

I mean, you're thinking, Jonathan, yeah, you carry a backpack, but I don't carry a backpack.

No, you carry a backpack, I promise.

You just can't see your backpack.

All of us carry a backpack.

Every single day.

You can't see it with your eyes, but you you feel the weight of this backpack in your soul.

You see, all of us carry a backpack, and none of those backpacks are ever empty.

They're always loaded down with burdens.

So this backpack, you know, maybe this stands for the burden of uh owning your own business.

You you love the business you started, but there's a burden that comes with it because um other people's spouses and uh children and livelihoods are directly connected to decisions you make on a daily basis.

So you carry that around with you.

Or maybe your burden is just that you have a job.

It is the job you wanted, but once you got there on day one, you realize that your coworkers like to argue all the time, and your boss isn't tuned in to what's actually going on in the world, and it just drives you kind of crazy.

You go every day and you don't really like it, but you go, and so you carry that along with you every uh single day.

Let's think.

Uh, other burdens people have in their life.

Oh, there's the unexpected medical bill that creeps up in life.

We put that in there, and then you're so excited that your child graduated from high school, and then you got that first college tuition bill, um, and then there was that unexpected, you know, auto repair that had to happen.

Already kind of getting a little cumbersome.

I don't know what I'm gonna do with this.

Okay, let's zip it up so these burdens don't fall out.

Then there's just the burden of uh growing old.

Yeah.

Sometimes our bodies just don't act like they used to.

Oh, and there's the burden of uh caring for a parent.

Yeah, when those roles reverse, that's a burden.

There's the burden of well, when your um spouse, the person you spent the last 50 years, they don't know your name anymore.

There's the burden of trying to parent a child and and seeing them walk away from God.

And then there's so many more.

I've got more room, so we can put a few more in here.

These are like the burdens of your past, the things that happened many years ago that you've never healed from.

You still carry them around with you.

And there's this burden, man, this burden, you know, that past it stays with you, but you also feel like you live in with anxiety towards the pre towards the future because of what happened in the past, and you believe that that future, um, man, it's just it's gonna be harder than the past or the present's ever been.

So you put that in, and then you try to put it on, and then you know you wake up in the morning and you realize, oh, wow, well, every day has its own set of burdens.

So you've got your backpack loaded up, and then you've got your arms loaded up, and you just start walking around.

Now, here's the thing about life: you you can have this backpack on and walk around for a little bit, and it's a little cumbersome, it feels a little uncomfortable.

And for a while you'll be able to like um keep your eyes looking straight ahead, walking straight ahead.

But pretty soon, do you know what happens?

You start looking at the ground because it's too much for you to carry.

And I just imagine, like, you're carrying this backpack around and you've got all these these burdens that you're carrying with you, and you um you try to go to bed at night.

You know the funny thing about this backpack, you don't take it off when you get in bed, do you?

You don't.

So, do you think you can sleep when you've got these burdens on your back?

No, you just toss and turn all night long.

Or you want to sit down and have a family dinner?

You want to talk to your spouse or your friends or be with your kids.

Imagine sitting in a chair with these burdens on your back.

It's no fun, right?

Like it's not comfortable at all.

It's not relaxing, it's just difficult and uncomfortable.

Like, you're you're tense the entire time.

Here's the thing.

In life and in faith, we were never meant to carry this much weight all by ourselves.

If we try to carry this much weight all by ourselves, our backs, they're gonna bend, and then eventually they're gonna break.

But all too often what we try to do is we try to tough it out.

We grit our teeth, we white knuckle it.

I can handle it all by myself.

And for a while we can.

But do you know what happens when that's the weight of the burdens you carry on a daily basis?

Do you know what happens?

You are so focused, you have to become so focused on taking just the very next step forward.

Like, and it is so hard to take the next step forward, and it takes all of your energy and all of your mental capacity that you can no longer hear the voice of God, and you can no longer uh sense the presence of God in your life.

You then need some support.

We need the support of our church family, and it's the responsibility of a church family to share the burdens of one another.

This doesn't mean we can eliminate every burden, but it means we seek to lighten the burden, we seek to relieve some of the pressure of that burden.

So for that person who carries a burden home from the office with them every day, it could be they just need a friend who will listen, or they need a friend who will spend time with them and not ask them about work.

Or for a person who's carrying that financial burden, one way you can help relieve it is you give a gift, but maybe this one, a gift won't even begin to address the issue.

But maybe you can come alongside them and help them think creatively about how to approach the problem that is so very real that they just know they're not in it alone.

Or for that person who's the primary caregiver of a parent, or for taking care of a spouse, just offer to take them a meal, offer to give them a break and sit with their loved one.

For the parent who feels the burden of a child who's walked away from God, encourage them with biblical truth that reminds them of God's heart for wayward children.

Our God is the one who um pursues the one lost sheep and then promise to pray for that child.

And something really powerful happens in the local church when we take seriously this biblical responsibility to offer the support of a partner.

We realize how much we need one another if we are going to follow after Jesus Christ.

And then through the support we offer one another, we point one another to the one who is the greater partner, to the one who is the greater burden bearer.

Matthew chapter 11, verse 28, when Jesus says, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Matthew 11:28

Jesus says these words, because he is the one who carried our greatest burden.

He carried the burden of our sin to his cross.

And now we don't have to be weighed down by it.

Jesus defeated the world so we don't have to be burdened by the world.

Friends, God calls together followers of Jesus to support one another so that we can be the presence of Christ to one another, the presence of Jesus to one another, and show each other what it means to follow a Savior who has lifted the burden, who carried the burden for us.

It's clear we need the support of partners, but we also listen, we need the encouragement of pacers.

Listen to the message found in Hebrews chapter three.

This simple phrase, but encourage one another daily, but encourage one another daily.

In Scripture, encouragement is more than complimenting someone for their new hairstyle or telling them how much you enjoy and love to eat the food that they cook.

That kind of encouragement is good and it's fine, but it's not what God talks about in his word.

Biblical encouragement is so much more.

In places like Hebrews chapter three, biblical encouragement.

Challenges you and I to point one another and lift their heart, lift our hearts toward God.

That word of encouragement will point out God's already present activity in that person's life.

That word of encouragement will remind us that God is with you and already working through you.

Encouragement points a person to God's promises and assures them that even though the world seems hopelessly broken and spiraling out of control, God remains on his throne.

So who can you encourage?

Who can you lift their eyes towards God and point their heart towards him in the face of unthinkable circumstances and difficult trials in life?

Who's the person God wants you to encourage?

Let me point you back to that picture at the very beginning when Adrian McDonald stood next door to his pacer, stayed next to him.

If we'll go to the next slide, yeah.

So that's his pacer.

His pacer is named Nick.

So let me tell you something about Adrian, and then I'm gonna tell you something about Nick.

First, here's something you should know about Adrian McDonald.

Before he ran the Leadville 100, he had never run more than 26.2 miles.

He'd never in a single day run more than a marathon.

And before Leadville 100, he had never run any um like big mountain trail race.

Like this is his first time.

Here's what you need to know about Nick, his pacer.

Nick had run Leadville three times and placed in the top five three times.

Nick had run the race before Adrian had ever run the race.

Nick knew the terrain.

He knew the ups and downs, he knew the challenges he was gonna face.

He knew the exact word of encouragement he would need to hear at every point in the race, leading towards that finish line.

Often the people you can encourage and offer the most profound word of encouragement to is someone who is in the middle of a trial or season that you have already passed through, that you are uh intimately familiar with.

That out of the scars and wounds of your own life, out of the brokenness and failures of your own life, you can speak life to a person.

You can encourage them, get up, get off the ground, and keep following Jesus.

It doesn't mean you're gonna have you're gonna be able to run fast, it just means you can take one more step forward towards Jesus.

You can affirm and say, Yes, I know it's hard.

Yes, I know it's difficult, yes, I know it's painful.

You're not making any of it up.

It is harder than you would ever imagine.

I agree.

But I'm gonna walk beside you because I've been through this before.

And I know if we just take one step and then another step and then another step and then another step, Jesus will lead the way.

But often what we need, then often the reason we get a DNF in this race, I did not finish the race, it's because we don't have someone in our life who tells us to get up and just to go for it.

I'll come with you.

I'll help you take another step and another step and another step.

I can't take those steps for you, but I can encourage you all along the way.

The race that we're all running, friends, it's not a solo sport.

We cannot go it alone.

That was never God's plan.

It's a team sport.

And to run the many miles between the start line and the finish line, you and I, we all need the support of partners and the encouragement of pacers.

So let me remind you where you can find the support of partners and the encouragement of pacers in the life of our church.

You can find it in life groups that meet on Sunday mornings at 9 a.m.

Yeah, you can.

In those small group gatherings, as you study God's Word, as you pray with one another, you come alongside one another, you offer support to one another, you encourage one another.

You can find that support and that encouragement in our women's Bible study that meets Tuesday mornings at 9.30 a.m.

and the men's Bible study that meets Tuesday mornings at 6.30 a.m.

Again, find support, find encouragement so that you can take one more step as you follow after Jesus Christ.

And then another place.

Come to Wednesday nights.

That's why we're meeting around tables.

That's why we're gathering in circles and not rows, is so that people can talk to one another.

We're wanting as a staff to create an environment that can foster these sorts of supportive, encouraging relationships that span the generations that support and encourage children and support and encourage senior adults and empty nesters and young adults and young families.

That's why we're structuring Wednesday nights the way we are, because we know we can't run the race by ourselves.

For too long we've tried it.

We got people sitting up in the mountains somewhere.

They're not gonna finish the race.

No more DNS, no more do not finish.

Let's all finish the race.

But we gotta run, we have to run it together.

So we've kind of set the table for you.

But the question remains, are you gonna take a seat?

I really hope you will.

God has called out his church and he designed the church so that we what?

So that there will be a season of life where you are giving support and encouragement, and then there's gonna be another season of life where you are the one receiving support and encouragement.

Sometimes they happen simultaneously, or it depends on the relationship.

But here this you were called by God to First Baptist Church so that we can run the race together.

Let's pray.

Almighty God and everlasting Father.

I thank you for my church family this morning.

I thank you that we are running this race together, that we get to run this race of faith side by side.

Father, I pray for the person this morning who needs support.

They are tired of running.

The trials of this world, the situation, the burdens in their family are so much, God, and they are just they're exhausted.

I pray that before they leave this place, they would encounter someone who can offer them the support they need.

I pray, God, for that person who just needs encouragement to take another step.

Take another step with Jesus, keep moving forward with Jesus.

Lord, may they encounter an encourager before they leave.

And Lord, I pray.

My heart's desire, God, is that we would all take advantage of the opportunities you present to us to be supporters and encouragers.

And then when someone tries to support and encourage us, that we would receive it.

We would willingly say, I need help.

I need friends in my life.

I need disciples of Jesus to come alongside me and help me run this race.

As much as we need each other, God, it points us to our even greater need.

That we need you.

I pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.