Run The Race | Hebrews 12:1-2 | Johnny Graves

Uh today for our summer in the scriptures series, we have our own youth director, Johnny Graves, who's going to bring a word from the book of Hebrews.

And so before he comes, I'd like to offer a scripture reading today from Hebrews chapter 11 and a selected number of verses from that chapter.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

So if you're able, I would invite you to stand at this time in honor of God's word and listen to the sacred scriptures together.

Hebrews chapter 11, starting in verse 4.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain.

By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found because God had taken him.

By faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear, constructed an ark for the saving of his household.

By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going.

By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age since she considered him faithful, who had promised.

By faith, Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau.

By faith, Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.

By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw that the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the king's edict.

By faith, Rahab, the prostitute, did not perish with those who were disobedient because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.

And all of these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us that apart from us, they should not be made perfect.

The word of the Lord.

Father in heaven, thank you for preserving this text.

Your word truly is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

This is the imperishable seed that you have planted on the inside of us.

We pray that today we would grow because of that seed.

We pray your blessing upon Johnny as he brings the word to us and bless our time together.

We pray it all in Jesus' mighty name.

And everyone said, Amen.

You may be seated.

Warm welcome for our own youth and youth and young adult director, Mr.

Johnny Graves.

All right, well, thank you, Pastor Dave, and reading some of the scripture found in chapter 11 of Hebrews.

So the reason we are went through some passages in chapter 11 is because we were reading chapter 12, and the first word in chapter 12 is the word therefore.

And usually when you see that word, you want to read the verses behind it and see what this author is kind of concluding here.

So that's why we read some portions of chapter 11, kind of the backdrop to what we will be preaching on here this morning in chapter 12.

So if you have your Bibles open, you actually don't really have to flip anywhere.

You should be right near there, because we are just on chapter 11.

So get that ready as we are about to get into some scripture this morning.

In today's passage, there is a lot of uh athletic imagery, uh motifs, and things like that, particularly running, which we see in a lot of other places in scripture, particularly used by Paul.

So maybe that's a little push to argue that Paul wrote this book potentially.

Um, but hopefully the the running, the working out illustrations don't bore all the narps in the room, uh the non-athletic regular persons that are here.

Uh hopefully you can still have some interest in this message here.

Uh, you can really use this towards whatever arena of life you find yourself in, whether it's academics, work, music, all that stuff, regardless.

I think this will be a great message for everyone here this morning.

So let's read that passage together in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1 and verse 2 is all we're going to be doing this morning.

Hebrews 12:1

So read along with me.

It says, Therefore, 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 to 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.

Let's pray before we get into this scripture this morning.

God, we thank you for what we got to read in chapter twelve.

Just person after person, by faith following you.

Each step they took, they followed you.

So, Lord, we pray as we get into chapter 12 here this morning, you would open our eyes, open our hearts to your word, convict us, let us see how great and beautiful you are as our Savior.

And we pray all this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So that first verse, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, what we just read in chapter 11 should be an encouragement after encouragement after encouragement.

Each reference is a person who is bearing witness to the faithfulness of God.

Each reference is a person who can testify to the goodness of the Lord.

Each person we read, right?

By faith, Noah, by faith, Abraham, by faith, Sarah, by faith, by faith.

They're here to let you know you can trust them.

They're all here to let you know it's all real.

All of it.

Everything you read, every story, every verse, and God's word that you've read about God, about Yahweh, about his character, about who he is, what he can do, it's all true.

You know when you go onto Amazon and you want to buy an item, and like just recently I had to buy like a big Cat5 cable for my internet, and you go on Amazon and there's like a thousand of them.

Just one cable, that's all I need.

I don't need a thousand of them.

Just give me one, give me one that works, that will work for a while.

And if you're like me, you the thing you look for then is you let's look at the reviews, right?

All right, well, this one has three reviews, not sure why.

And there's only three stars, but then the one below it's got like 30.5k, thousand reviews, four point eight stars.

Like those are the ones you want to get, because you know they've been tested and tried, and everyone says, this is good, this is this is gonna work, this is awesome.

However awesome a cat 5 cable can be, but I'm sure it'll get the job done.

That's kind of what we have here.

We have review after review after review saying, five star, five star, God is good, God is good.

We have a lot of people witnessing to how awesome our God is.

We see in the life they lived, even amidst the challenges, the trials, they still obeyed and they still followed.

They took their steps by faith.

By faith.

Their life was evidence of what they witnessed of God, because if they witnessed something else of God, they would have lived different lives and made different decisions.

But the choices they made is evidence of what they witnessed of God.

And that is a witness to us today.

That God is good.

We got evidence in this room, we got evidence in church history, we got evidence in scripture that God is good all the time.

And all the time, God is good.

Forrest Frank is singing that, they were thinking, singing that 2,000 years ago.

And that's what we're reading here in chapter 11.

So therefore, since.

So the author says, since we are, let us.

Since we are witnesses, let us run.

Let us cast aside is the next phrase.

Like we've experienced all this, now we've got to go do something.

And what the author is saying is, let us lay aside every weight and sin that clings closely.

So buckle up a little bit here.

Uh, we're gonna let the Holy Spirit move this morning.

Uh, because before we get into the depth of all of this, uh, you know, we we we want to walk out of here a change person, right?

That's why we're here, we're at church, and we want to allow the Lord to move in mighty ways this morning, and we want him to reveal to us what is necessary.

So let's let our guard down a little bit, prepare our hearts, be ready to reflect, repent, let the defenses down, and let's let God do his thing this morning here.

And I'll admit when I first read this verse, I kind of just read it as one thing.

Cast aside the weight and the sin, one thing, bad, get it out, not good.

But let's just look at the first part, and then we'll get to the second part.

The first part, they are two different words.

It's let us lay aside every weight.

Every weight.

Now, when this when this was written, races back then were ran much differently than today.

Praise the Lord.

Uh, because a run a runner back then would come into the race all dressed up potentially, you know, a little hunger game style, girl and file, fire, uh toga, whatever it is.

And then when the race would start, they would take all of it off.

And when I mean all of it off, I quite literally mean all of it off.

Uh, to the point where they would run naked.

No wonder they're running so fast, right?

Like I would too.

So they're stripping off the weight so that they could run faster.

You know, Spandex was not invented, Lulu was in a store yet, so they were like, this is the fastest way to run.

So what is meant by this?

He quite literally means anything with like weight, anything with pounds and ounces to it, take it off.

It's prohibiting you from running faster.

So I don't think weight and sin here are the same thing.

I think the author is trying to say two different things there's weight and there's sin.

So we're talking about weight right now.

So weight is not necessarily a bad thing.

Clothes are good, they keep us warm and covered, all that stuff.

So this one can be a little tough to reflect on.

So for us, I think that means is there anything in our lives that, okay, they're not sinful or bad.

Are there anything in our lives that are prohibiting us from running faster, from running better than we could?

So since school is around the corner, I figured we got to get uh you know ready for school.

So I have a backpack over here, but I need a volunteer.

We got some kids in the house today.

I believe kids are in church.

Is there a kid in the house that would like to come up on stage and be my volunteer here, or a teen, or I'll take a college student?

I I would.

I know your name.

So any any volunteers, put your hand up.

Any kids, anybody feeling bold here this morning?

Otherwise, I will call on somebody's name that I know.

Oh, is this the only one over here?

All right, this is not staged.

Come on, Bennett.

I promise.

Alright, so we're getting ready for school.

We're starting school September 8th.

Tell everybody your name.

This is Bennett.

Bennett's awesome.

Uh so Bennett is gonna wear his Bennett's also my my son.

So like I said, this is not stage.

She was the only one.

I looked everywhere.

Alright, so he's gonna put on this backpack and he's gonna tell us um how the backpack feels.

So let's get this backpack on.

And how's that feel?

Heavy.

Heavy.

All right, so we're going to school.

Let's hold that for a second.

We're going to school next week, and he has a very specific race.

And when you get ready for school, you know, the night before, you're doing great.

The night before, you look at your backpack, you make sure you have all the necessary things for school, right?

That's what we do.

So, Bennett here is gonna help me with that and take this backpack off.

And some of this may look familiar because it's probably from our house.

Uh, so we're gonna take one thing out one by one, and we'll just show everybody what we got.

So let's take one thing out and we'll just go through this whole list.

All right, so uh we got a great beach toy.

If you need any ideas, you throw it, the wave brings it back.

Really cool.

All right, what else do we have in here, Bennett?

All right, we got sea goggles.

Can't imagine this being used super well in school, but I guess it's cool.

And we have a cat five cable.

So my story was true.

Also, I'll let everybody know these stories that we share up here are not made-up stories.

This is quite literally true.

Five stars, uh, I believe.

Um we have a single right tap shoe.

Um, so if you ever want to tap just at your right foot, and you're also one year old, that will work.

Uh, we got a Fisher Price leapfrog.

Uh that's very good.

Uh Bennett might actually have a song recorded of him singing on this one, uh, which is great.

Okay, we got a quite literal 10-pound standard weight in his backpack.

All right, so I'm not sure what school we're going to.

Uh we got a fun phone in here.

Uh doesn't have location services parents, but maybe we'll call you at some point.

All right, we got a uh cat five crimper for all those tech guys out there.

Really like the internet.

All right, we got coffee.

This might be uh necessary for me.

Yeah, we got some applause.

There's some coffee out in the back when you're done here.

All right, what else?

Crayons, all right.

Swear might do we need crayons for school kids?

Raise your hand if you need crayons.

Crayons or crayons?

But debate of the year.

All right, that looks that looks promising.

It actually says your name on it, isn't it?

Alright, uh go-go squeeze.

This is necessary for me.

Anybody else?

I'm a big go-go squeeze fan.

Not so much the peach flavor, but all right, we got glue.

Kids, glue?

Do we need glue?

Raise your hand.

Do we use glue?

We use glue.

All right.

All right, we got another book with your brother's name on it.

Judah, composition of Judah.

Uh, we got a pen.

Do we use pens?

Pencils?

All right, so we got some.

We're looking more like we're ready for school here.

We got like two more things.

We got a bad guy book.

Thank you for letting me borrow this, Bennett, for this story.

And we got one more thing.

We got a folder.

Do we use folders?

Yes, take on folders.

Alright, so here's our pile.

So, Bennett, tell me what you would need for next week when you start school.

And just grab it.

Take up whatever you think you need for school.

All right, crayons.

All right, glue, good.

Here you can put it in here.

Sorry, don't put it in there.

All right, we got a folder.

We got crayons, we got glue.

Yep.

What else?

A pen, yes, good, good choice.

What else?

School ready.

School ready.

I have what your teacher sent us if we need to refer to that.

What else?

What do you want here in this book?

Here we go.

Uh throw the go-go squeeze in there.

That's my I'll need that.

Alright, anything else?

I think that's pretty good.

So let's put this backpack back on, and you'll let me know how this feels now.

Much lighter.

So, does that feel like a backpack you want to carry into school?

And you have all your stuff that you need?

Awesome.

Alright, well, let's clap it up for my man Bennett over here.

Thank you very much.

We can go back.

Alright, so all this stuff is still good.

We just don't need it for school.

That's what this race is ahead of him, 180 days.

Not bad, not evil, not sinful, but not needed.

But he he put in his backpack what was needed.

Do we ever do that with our own life?

Do we ever take an inventory of our backpack and say, alright, hey, hey, there's some good things here, but it's not what the Lord has for me on this race.

Right?

If we want to do our best, I need to be focusing on what the Lord has for me.

All these other things are quite literal weight, preventing me from putting in my full effort, my full focus on the things that are ahead of me, whether that's being a dad, being a spouse, being a good friend, being a good employee at this work that the Lord has called me to.

So, do you ever do an inventory of your life and see what's prohibiting you from running well?

Alright, we do that with our backpacks before school.

Do we do that with our own lives so we can remove the weight and we can run faster and run well?

Another example, you know, a couple months ago we were going through Jonah early this summer, and in Jonah 1, the and other stories and movies actually, we'll see the boat start sinking, and what does everybody scramble and start doing?

They start throwing stuff off the ship, they start removing everything.

Get rid of this, get rid of that.

Let's make the boat lighter, just get all the weight off so we can make it to our destination.

But what a lot of us do sometimes in those scenarios is instead of removing the weight, we try to control everything else.

Well, let me control the winds, let me control the rain, I want to keep all this stuff.

These are the things that I really want to do.

But that never works.

It just says, cast away the weight.

Not run faster, cast away the weight.

So pray about this.

Challenge you, go home, do an inventory of your backpack, look at your schedule.

This is, you know, Somerset County, New Jersey.

We're busy from the moment we wake up to even when we're sleeping.

We're we're we're doing something.

So pray about it and do an inventory of your backpack of life.

Cast aside the weight.

The second half of this verse says to cast aside the sin, like I said before, two different words.

So we're gonna look at to look at sin now.

And it says, sin which clings closely.

But that's it for a second.

The sin that clings closely.

Get rid of it.

Right?

And not not some of it, or when when you want to, well, as long as the sin's in moderation, or you know, it's an accident, or small ones, big, whatever it is.

It just says sin, cast it away.

Alright, if this is a coach, a running coach, he's trying to tell you some tips.

Trust me, do this.

It's going to help.

It's prohibiting you from running well, and that's the purpose of this statement.

The author is trying to say the sin is impacting you poorly.

Sin has an effect on you.

The Greek adjective here that is used is a eupharistatos, which means to control tightly.

It's binding, it's hindering you.

Right?

We are called to be controlled by the love of Christ, not be controlled by the sin in our life.

Sin is never neutral.

Well, it doesn't really impact me the way it impacts others.

I can handle it and be fine.

Isaiah, you know, if you look into scripture, it tells us a much different story about sin.

Isaiah 59, 2 says this But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

James 1.15 says, Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin.

And sin when it has fully grown, brings forth death.

Sin hurts.

Sin kills.

Whenever we see the word sin in the Bible, there's usually that word death somewhere nearby.

A few weeks ago at our young adult group, I asked this question.

I said, Do you dabble with unholy things?

And the reason I said dabble is because I think a lot of times when we think about sin, we go, okay, I didn't kill anybody today, so that's good.

Uh I didn't do a bank bank heist, I didn't rob any banks, um, what else?

I used all nice words, and uh I'm I'm staying faithful to my wife, so I'm like pretty good.

I I I'm I guess I didn't sin that much today.

But I like saying the word dabble because I feel like there's a lot of little things that like we're okay with.

For example, okay, like, no, I don't I I don't commit adultery, but I watch some movies with some stuff in it.

That's probably not great, but you know, it's not that bad.

Do I rob banks or hey, like we joke, but uh you know, maybe I clock in at work and I don't really work for the first few hours.

Not me.

Not me.

Uh, and so on.

YouTube, I don't know.

Uh so here's the catch.

Sin impacts you.

Like whether you believe it or not, like your belief in that does not change its effect on you.

It impacts you no matter what.

Whether you're you're you're following Jesus or you're not.

Uh, whether you've been following Jesus since you were five or you just started, uh, whether it's a big sin or a small sin, a secret sin or an obvious sin, it's going to impact you negatively.

Like one sin entered the world and changed the course of humanity forever.

It didn't take 1,000 sins and oh, now everything's broken.

It took one.

So if one sin mattered in the garden, one sin matters today.

We brush one sin off all the time.

It was a long day, it was the weekend, all my friends were.

How many times do we just brush that one sin off?

So sin matters.

Sin affects us.

And we often don't really care or think that it does anything to us.

So why mention that here?

Why is the author saying, cast that sin aside?

So if we're staying with our running illustrations here, if you've ever run before, you know the importance of so many things that affect you.

What did you eat the night before?

Did you sleep?

Did you hydrate?

Did you eat carbs this morning?

Did you warm up?

Did you go to the bathroom?

Did you stretch?

All those things impact you and how you're gonna run.

All of it matters, whether you believe it or not.

That's what the author is trying to say here, that sin is clinging closely to you.

And when you run, you don't want any of that, trust me.

It'll impact you.

So how are you casting aside the sin in your life right now?

You know, a dangerous place to be as a Christian is to say I'm a sinner and have no idea what the sin is in my life.

Get rid of it.

And you have to know what it is before you get rid of it, right?

Let the Lord open your heart to that sin in your life.

Like we wonder sometimes why is life so rough and then why isn't things going well?

And well, sometimes we could be running with a bunch of sin clinging to me and controlling me, and it's making it really hard to run.

Cast it aside.

And what's cool is when you do, it actually shows how much you care about the race that you're running.

Right?

At a race, you'll notice, you'll notice at a race people that didn't train.

Uh, you'll notice people who stayed up late eating garbage, you know, the girl who chugged the chai latte before the race, uh, this guy's eating a big thing of fettuccine alfredo at the start line.

Like these people obviously don't care about the race that much, right?

Last week, uh, myself and a few students here, we ran a 5K, it was super fun, and one of our students is a cross-country runner, got us all ready, and we know did the warm-ups, we did the stretches, we did the electrolytes, the gels, you're like, Hey, this is all that you gotta do.

Because we all cared, and we saw other people doing the same thing because they wanted to do the best that they could.

So those that stretched, they got there early, they ate well, went to bed early, carbs, all that stuff, got rid of all the unnecessary things, took my phone out, took that out.

Guess what those people cared about?

The race.

They wanted to run well.

So, church, do you want to run well?

Do you want to run well?

Sometimes I feel like we just claim Christ's victory and we say, who cares?

Well, Christ already won, so who really cares what I do?

You know what that's like?

That's like a few years ago, uh, a few years after college, uh, one of my friends was getting married, and we were going out to dinner, and his dad was like, hey, I'm gonna pay for the dinner tonight.

We're like, oh yes, like this is incredible.

Uh went to a nice Mexican restaurant and we just ordered the entire menu.

I it was it was ridiculous.

We ordered every appetizer, every drink, every entree, every dessert, and the table was full, and it was sad because like we didn't really, only half of it was really touched, but we were like, he's paying, right?

Like we we didn't care, not our card.

We didn't care what the cost was because we didn't have to pay for it.

We didn't care what the cost was because we didn't have to pay for it.

And sadly, unfortunately, sometimes as believers, we fall into that with our sin.

I don't really care what the cost is because Jesus is paying for it.

It's so sad if that is our mentality, right?

It's not that God can't cover the tab, it's we don't care that he is.

You know, it's like it's like looking at Jesus saying, hey Jesus, can you can you hang up on the cross there just for a few more minutes?

Uh I'm going off to college, I don't want any rules.

Just hang up there for a few more minutes for me.

Hey, Jesus, can you hang up on the cross just just for a few more minutes?

There's this really good HBO show.

Everyone's watching it.

I know there's some stuff in it, but just hang up there for a few more minutes for me.

Hey, Jesus, hang up there for a few more minutes on that cross for me.

You know, my marriage is okay, I have needs that you know, they're not meeting, so I'm I'm I need I need to go do some things.

Just hang up there for a few more minutes, Jesus.

But the most mind-blowing thing is he would.

He did.

For all of our sins we're not aware of, all of our sins we're making excuses for, all of our sins that we're justifying.

He did stay up there for us.

Paul David Tripp says this.

He says, it is impossible to minimize your sin without denying God's grace.

It is also impossible to deny, ignore, or minimize your sin without giving it more room to grow in your heart and life.

There was a big cost for sin.

And Jesus covered it.

And it's not, it's not, it's not legalism.

Like me, you know, not cheating on your spouse is not legalism.

It's loving.

All right, me as a parent, not allowing my kids to do certain things, is not me sheltering them.

It's me showing them how to be faithful to somebody that you love.

So let us care about that.

Let us care about the sin in our life and cast it aside.

Cast it aside.

And the author is saying the reason you're casting it aside is because you care and you want to love the person you're running towards.

And it says, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

The Christian life is not a passive life or a sedentary life.

It's a called life.

It's a life with movement.

Right?

Decades ago there was the Jesus movement, because it required people to speak, it required people to move.

Commentator wrote this: that the race is marked out for us by God, implying that every believer's duty is to run the race.

This is everybody.

If you are a believer in Christ Jesus, you are here and you are running this race.

And I love the grammar that is used here, how it says, let us.

So the English majors in the room, this is not an imperative.

This is not someone saying, hey, you go do this.

It's a hortatory subjunctive word, which means the author is aligning himself with the audience.

So he's putting his arms around them saying, Let's go do this.

This isn't like for certain groups, or, you know, if you went to seminary or depending where you live in the world, like you do this.

Let us all go do this.

Let us run.

It's me, it's you.

Let's go run with endurance.

In that word endurance, all the commentators agree on this.

The word endurance is there, is meant to signal that this is a longer run.

All right, if you ever watch the Olympics, there's a hundred-meter sprint.

That's not really a long run, it's a sprint.

Just run as fast as you can.

200 meters, same thing.

But here the word endurance is saying a long run, the mile, the marathon.

Those runs require endurance, which requires determination, focus, eyes are on the goal, like wisdom for the course that you're going on.

Philippians 3.14, Paul writes this: he says, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

I press on.

That's a word need, you know, when we're talking about endurance.

I'm pressing on each mile after each mile after each mile.

So how do we do this?

How do we run with endurance?

So here's a few, three things that will that I'll say.

Uh, first one is patience.

You gotta run with patience.

If we want to run with endurance, we gotta run with patience.

And that might confuse you because you're like, well, aren't races you want to run as fast as you can and get to the end?

Each mile has a purpose.

Don't rush it.

The end is there, and you're here for a reason.

Do what you need to do here.

Like, have you ever seen those videos uh of marathons, and there's some guy in the front of the line that you know has no business being in the front of the line?

And and the race starts and he just books it way past everybody, and then about 30 seconds into the race, they pretty much just collapse and they don't finish the race.

No patience.

So you gotta run with patience, take your time.

You know, as Jimmy World famously said, it just takes some time, little girl.

You're in the middle of the ride.

Everything, everything will be just fine, everything, everything will be alright.

All right.

All right, millennials.

You hopefully you guys got that one.

We'll get there.

Run, run at with patience.

You'll eventually get to the end of the race, even if you're in the middle of it right now, just be patient.

Second, run at a pace.

So I started taking running a little more seriously a couple years ago, and I was with a former student from here, uh, Mark O'Glack, and he was a cross-country runner, and he was explaining to me like the importance of different kinds of runs, how fast you run, and so on.

And he said a majority of the time you go running, they should be slow.

Base runs, zone two, all this stuff.

I didn't know what that meant.

And I was like, that makes no sense to me.

Like when you go run, you're 100%, full cent, let's go, get to the end, like that's what I want to do, right?

And that's just not how it works with running.

Like, you want to have these slower runs, build your aerobic base, all this stuff.

And if you're going for longer distances, you got to go at what some people will call a conversational pace.

I was like, man, like, you know, if I'm gonna have a conversation with someone, am I really trying?

Like that was my mentality.

Uh but that is really important when you look into and get into running, is that's like a majority of the running that you're doing.

A few months ago, I went to California, visited some family, and my sister-in-law is like a like a professional marathon runner.

She's run dozens of them.

And she was like, hey, tomorrow at 5 30 a.m., I'm going on like a 10-mile run with my running club.

I was like, I guess I'm going.

And it was a conversational pace.

I was talking to people around me.

I was like, this is so bizarre.

Usually run by myself.

And I'm talking to people, hearing about their life.

And let me tell you, it was still hard.

Like, just because I was running slower, running at a conversational pace doesn't mean it wasn't hard.

It still required endurance, it required determination.

But a lot of us were sprinting by in life.

And we're missing out and we're collapsing with how fast we're running.

And I'm thinking my life should probably be at a conversational pace.

If not, I might be running by people I should be having conversations with.

My spouse, my kids, my friends.

Instead, right, we live in this area, I just want to be the best, get to the end, and win.

But maybe we're being called to run at a pace and do what the Lord has called us to do each mile.

It's not going 50%, it's it's doing 100% in that moment what you need to do.

And that's gonna look different for each person, right?

Season of life you're in, whatever it is, that's gonna look different, but let's run at a conversational pace.

Third and last, we have to run with purpose, not aimlessly, not running around, not lost.

1 Corinthians 9, 25 to 26 says, Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.

They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

So I do not run aimlessly.

I do not box this one beating the air.

Paul's saying, there is a route we are on, and I'm gonna run on that one.

There's focus that is needed.

There's no drifting, no lulling, no wandering.

There's a clear destination ahead, and that's where I'm going.

I say it like this: like every day we wake up, every day we go out and we take a step.

Do you have any idea what direction you're taking that step in?

Here we are told to take that step on the course that Jesus has set before us.

And the best way to do that, the best way to do that, as we continue in verse 2, it says, looking to Jesus.

The founder and perfecter of our faith.

Like we're not guessing, we're not running blind, we're running, looking to Jesus.

Because he has already shown us the path in the course.

He set the example of how to even do it.

And we have this incredible book called the Bible.

It has a bunch of gospels in there, and there is example after example after example on how Jesus ran that race.

John 4, Jesus had conversations with outcasts from his day.

Mark 1, Jesus went up, took care of a man that was sick with leprosy.

Matthew 14, Jesus went, spent some time on a mountain to pray to the Lord.

John 11, Jesus went and loved his friends when they mourned the death of their friend Lazarus.

Jesus ran that race perfectly on our behalf.

He showed us how we should live, and he gives us the Holy Spirit to go and do that.

What's cool is if you go and you watch a marathon, you'll see a few runners.

They have this long stick or like a long pole, and at the top of it, there'll be a time stamp.

It'll say like three hours or three and a half hours, four hours.

And that what that is, is it's a marathon pacer.

So basically, if you want to run a marathon in a certain time, granted you've trained, uh you just run with that person and they'll get you to the finish line in that time.

So you'll see these guys running with a pole, and you'll see like this crowd around them, like they're a celebrity.

Because all those people are like, I want to finish this race in three hours, so I'm gonna run with this guy.

If he runs faster, I'm gonna run faster.

If he slows down, I'm gonna slow down.

If he gets some water, I'm gonna get some water.

If he gets a gel thing, I'm gonna get a gel thing.

Whatever this guy does, I'm gonna do, and I'm gonna get to the finish line in that time.

So when we're running, we're not running alone, we're running with the Holy Spirit with our eyes on Jesus.

That's how we're gonna get there.

Like those guys running with that pacer aren't saying, this is easy.

It's still hard, but they know they can do it because they're running with someone who knows the course, who knows how to do it.

You stick with me, we're gonna get there.

Keep your eyes on Jesus.

Means we're looking away from everything else and we're just focusing on that one thing.

Do whatever he does.

Go wherever he goes, do whatever he says, and you'll get there.

And as the founder and perfecter of our faith, as it says here, a commentator says it like this: George Guthrie says that he perfected our faith.

Means that the Lord accomplished fully what it would take for new covenant faith to be a reality.

So another commentator points out that he is the source of our faith and the model of our faith.

He's the source, as in his death and resurrection is where we receive it.

That's the source.

And the model, as in, he trusted God by his obedience and his work of atonement, that is the model of faith as well.

So Jesus ran well.

He ran it perfectly.

And we see what motivated him in Scripture.

We continue on in the verse.

It says, 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.

Every step Jesus took was one step closer to a cross.

But at the cross, he didn't see, he didn't see the end.

He saw you and he saw me.

Even though the race was tough, even though it required endurance, it required focus, it required denial of self, it was all worth it for Jesus to keep going because he saw what was at the end, at the finish line.

And that brought him joy to endure those tough miles.

It brought him joy, even when things were getting really challenging, to push through, to run with endurance, because he saw you, he saw me, he saw his people who could now come to him freely because of the sin that was washed away by the perfect grace he ran on our behalf.

Yeah, there were some hurdles, there were some tough miles here and there, but the joy ahead for him pushed him to keep going.

So is that joy of being with him for eternity?

Is that good enough of a motivator for you today to keep going?

Like for Jesus it was.

So it's not about our performance, it's about his.

It's not about our perfection, it's about his.

It's not about our position, it's about his.

So we just need to accept the grace that he has offered us and run the race right towards him.

So, church, let us run.

Let us run with endurance, with our eyes on the prize of Jesus Christ.

And I hope that's enough.

That's enough for me that we're gonna spend eternity with our loving Savior who bled and died for me.

Let's pray.

God, we come before you this morning and we just we confess and we say sorry that we've treated sin lightly.

That we've said, I don't really care sometimes, not a big deal sometimes.

So, Lord, to that we just say sorry.

So, Lord, I pray that you would convict us of our hearts, convict our hearts right now, Lord, if there's some sin in our life that we've just kept in our pocket.

And I pray that you you, by your power, you let us cast it aside.

Right now, Lord.

God, we thank you that you are a God who goes before us, you are a God who goes beside us.

You've shown us how to run, you've shown us how to live.

You are the source and the model of our faith, and we we praise you and we thank you.

So, Lord, by the power of your Holy Spirit, would you allow us to go out each day and run with endurance, Lord?

The days are long, the days are tiring, it can be exhausting some miles.

We might feel like we're gonna cramp up and fall over.

But God, you're so good that you you walk beside us.

You give us that strength that we need, you give us that hope that we need to keep going.

So, Lord, may we chase after you.

Every single day.

May our steps just be closer to you.

In Jesus' name.