Ultimate Marathon

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God, what does it mean for you to be our vision?

What does it mean for us to have eyes to see the way you see?

God, I pray that that's what you would give us this morning.

I pray that you would let us see you.

Let us be reminded of your long history with us and how good you've been.

Let us not put our hope or trust in anything else but you.

Let us firmly anchor ourselves to you.

Let our faith be found deep in you so that we are not shaken, we are not moved, except by you, for you, and because of you.

God, I pray that you'd use me this morning.

Let me be your conduit to bring your word.

Holy Spirit, loosen yourself in this place today.

I pray for revelation.

I pray, God, for realization.

And Lord, while we're on the R's, let me also pray for rain.

God, I want both kinds.

I want the R-E-I-G-N and I want the R-A-I-N.

I want you to reign in our hearts and reign in this place.

But God, also, if you would see it clear that give us some rain, Lord.

Give us some relief.

Let us know it's all from you in accordance to your will and timing.

I pray all of this in your son's name.

Amen.

Well, you may be seated.

Well, good morning.

My name is Wade Burgess, and I'm the executive pastor here.

Now, many of you likely got a tomorrow email, and you thought you figured out the rhythm of those.

Whoever sends the email gets to preach.

Well, we fooled you today.

Normally, what would be happening right now is our lead pastor Neil McClendon would be up here, but at 7:30 this morning he called me and said, Wade, I'm sick.

I'm not going to be able to make it.

And so here's what I don't want you to do: don't send an email or text or calling.

After he takes the hangover remedy, I send him, he's going to be fine.

All right.

So I don't want you bothering him.

Let's just let him sleep it off.

But this morning you get me.

And so I'll ask for your indulgence kind of in two areas.

One in just that, that I'm here in front of you, and we're going to let God do what he does with the words that he gives us in the actual Bible, the actual words of God.

The second thing I'll ask for your indulgence is I want to take just a few minutes, and I recognize that this is going to be a little bit of a lengthy setup, okay, before we get to the Bible.

But here's my hope.

My hope is by doing this, it better contextualizes what we're going to talk about today.

So if you'll bear with me, let me kind of give a bit of a lead-in.

My son, when he was in junior high and high school, he ran track and cross country.

Now, if you chased me with a car, I wouldn't run.

So I had really no uh way to, you know, have a shared experience with him or anything else.

But I could certainly recognize and appreciate what he was going through to do this competition.

I saw the practice that he would go through and leading up to these meets and the preparation of both body and mind and all these things.

I saw the bills we were paying for shoes.

I saw all the things that was going into him getting ready to race.

But here's what I really admired: it was the effort.

That to me is the number one reason I enjoy sports or really anything that requires effort.

I really enjoy seeing effort put in.

And that's exactly what would happen.

Kind of teary-eyed, I'd watch him because uh the effort that I knew had led up to, but also the effort I saw him putting in in those meets and events.

Now, whenever you're competing, I'm told it's hard to hear distinctive voices.

You just kind of hear this roar.

But he went to George Ranch and they were the Longhorns, and so what I would use to get his attention is a cowbell.

And what I would do is I would ring this cowbell whenever he was racing by, and he would know, hey, that that's dad, that's where he is.

But then we had this little system that as he got closer to the end, particularly about maybe a hundred yards out, something like that, maybe 200 meters if he's racing in track, I would start ringing that bell faster.

And let me tell you, I look like a Texas tech clown out there ringing this thing, okay?

I mean, I had that bell going, all right, and he would get ready.

And his specialty was the finish.

Man, he would put his head down and he would get that kick going, and then he would raise his head and have all this kind of strain.

And then after all this endurance, actually, there's a picture in my office of him racing cross country, and it is painful.

Neil looks at it and says, that's one of the many reasons I don't run.

And so I recognize that, you know, track is a little bit different than cross-country, and cross-country is obviously a lot different than marathons.

Marathon is a whole nother animal in and of itself.

You train over a longer period of time, you've got so much longer to run.

There's even a difference in mentality when you're getting ready for a marathon.

And then there are these ultra marathons.

Have you heard of these clowns?

I mean, these idiots are running for, I mean, these guys are running for a while, okay?

I stumbled across, pun intended stumble.

I stumbled across this article a little while back on the Barclay Marathon.

Now, if you know about this one, then you probably know a little too much about ultra marathons, but this is an endurance race.

Now, listen to just a little bit of some statistics from this.

This is five loops totaling about a hundred miles over 60 hours.

Now, the total elevation gain during those five loops, during that time, is 60,000 feet.

Just to kind of put that in context, that would be like climbing Mount Everest twice.

Okay?

It's it is the ultimate endurance.

It's located in uh Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee.

And here's the crazy thing about this race is if that weren't enough, there's really no guidelines or markers, there's no trailheads, and oh, I'm gonna follow this and then turn into that.

In fact, they don't allow GPS.

There's one map at the beginning for all the participants to use.

They will look at the map, they will kind of get where it's going, and then they'll go.

What does the map show?

The map shows locations of books.

What you do is you find the book in the woods, tear out a page, put it in your pocket, and that's to show you finished that lap.

This is the ultimate marathon, I would think, for runners and all of that.

Just to give you this idea, in 30 years, they've had this thing for 30 years.

Okay, you'd think the government would shut that down by now.

It's such a dumb idea, but in 30 years, 15 people have finished.

What in the world does all of that have to do with anything related to the Bible?

Or being a believer?

Well, I think the lessons from that ultra marathon can be applied to the ultimate marathon, which is life, this life that God has called us to, this life as a believer.

That Christian life, for many of us, it feels like there's no trail markers.

I mean, we're like, man, I wish I could find a book in the woods.

I'd tear a page out.

Are you kidding me?

You ought to live the life I've lived.

Make one loop in my shoes, and we'll see what that thing looks like for you.

And I know the effort is required, and sometimes it's more than we wish to give, but I want to provide some suggested steps, if you will, and tell you that the race is worth it.

Let's read together Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

The writer of Hebrews gives us some really good analogy, I think, a good word picture of this idea of the ultimate marathon.

And I recognize in this, there are multiple sermons perhaps contained in these words, but I want us to draw from this text what is it to run the ultimate marathon?

And what do we do to do it successfully at least?

Let's take a look.

Hebrews chapter 12, starting in verse 1, and reads this.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

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 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 now 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.

In your struggle against sin, you have not resisted to the point of shedding your blood, and you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons.

My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when we are reproved by him.

For the Lord disciplines those he loves and chastises every son whom he receives.

It is for discipline that you have to endure.

God is treating you as sons.

For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

If you are left without discipline, in which you all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them.

Shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and live?

For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them.

But he disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness.

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

I want to review three overarching keys to success in this ultra marathon.

And I want to understand the fact that here's what they do: that we don't take each one individually, but each of these three things we're going to look at, we have to build on.

We take number one and bring it to two, and one and two, then to three.

And these build on themselves, and then they are constantly applied in order for us to be successful in what the writer of Hebrews is encouraging us related to this race that we're running.

The first key to a successful race is preparation.

And that preparation involves intake.

You've seen runners getting ready and they're fueling up or super athletes, or just us going outside tomorrow.

We're drinking a whole lot of liquids and we're taking it in and we're getting ready and all of this, preparing ourselves for that.

So the first key is intake.

Well, what is the intake we believers need?

It's the Bible.

It's the word of God.

It's us feasting on the word.

Before you can begin an ultra marathon, you must have nourishment and hydration.

You must be taking in the Bible.

Now you might be asking, Wade, what do I do?

Do I just read it?

Yeah.

Yeah, you read it.

You spend time in it.

When you hear people say spend time in the Word, what they're talking about is you actually have to crack this thing open and look at it.

You've got to maybe use a Bible app if you wanted to.

Those are great.

And they can kind of give you a reading plan.

They can give you some daily devotionals.

In fact, we have devotions here.

I think the new ones are coming out next week.

They do it every uh three months.

And it gives you just a daily reading of the word and an idea of application.

Now, I would suggest if you're saying, well, I'm fairly new to the Bible thing, I don't really know where to start, what's in there?

I hear there's a lot of don'ts and all this.

I would start in Mark.

John's a great place to start.

Both of those were disciples of Jesus.

Both of them wrote what we call the Gospels, the first four books of the New Testament.

Great place to start there.

Or if you want to, you could do it like any other book and just start at the beginning.

Read the whole thing.

If you're not a regular reader or developed a daily habit of that, then what I would want you to do is just start somewhere.

Somebody asked me recently, they said, wait, how do you have a consistent time of Bible reading?

And I'm like, man, I tell you, I used to want to wake up early and I'm going to read my Bible.

And at 4:30, I'm like, you know what?

I think God's busy probably in Asia right now.

I'll just wait.

And so what I found over the course of my marathon thus far is this.

I have to make it a habit and I have to join it with other habits.

I have one particular habit I do every day.

I go to bed.

So I just read my Bible before I go to bed.

Now, don't do this.

Don't read your Bible while you're going to sleep and then wait.

I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about giving yourself enough time, but I am talking about this idea of a daily habit of taking in the word, whatever works for you.

There's nothing more holy about early morning.

There's nothing more, you don't have to do any of that if that's not for you, but you need to find where is it that I can already have the Bible influencing and connected to what I'm already doing.

A regular diet of the Bible is a key ingredient to that proper nourishment of this idea of this ultra marathon that is life to prepare and sustain us.

We also have to keep our eye on Jesus.

Look at verse 2.

He says, 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.

This idea of how do we know what Jesus expects of us?

How do we understand joy?

What does all that look like?

Well, it's in the Bible.

If we're wondering what's God's will for our life, it's in the Bible.

If we're wondering, what do I do with my money?

It's in the Bible.

So many times we're left with, man, I don't know God.

What is it that I, and yet we will not even read his very word for us.

So the first thing we have to do when we're getting ready for this ultra marathon is we've got to take in the right nourishment.

And that first form of nourishment is the Bible.

The second form of nourishment, in my opinion, is prayer.

If you want to be in shape for the ultra marathon, you've got to be praying regularly, constantly.

Now, some of us hear that, we're like, oh, okay, I guess it's constant prayer.

I'll just walk around, summon, and summon.

That's not it at all.

But what it is, is it's having a mind toward it.

It might look like this.

You go to school tomorrow and you're in class, and the first thing you're thinking is, I don't know if I'm gonna get through all this.

Maybe in your mind and in your heart, you're just saying a little prayer, God, help me to be what I need to be.

Let me just, or maybe you go to work and you're doing the same, you're in a meeting, somebody's talking to you, and you're just, God, let me just, oh, Holy Spirit, give me the word to say here.

Let me, there's a constant mindset around prayer.

And if you don't have the words, that's okay.

If you're not sure, man, I don't even know how to pray.

I mean, am I just supposed to use God as kind of like my Santa Claus vending machine?

God, here's my calendar.

If you could take care of these things, that'd be great.

Oh, and if you could throw in maybe this or that.

Here's what I would tell you if you're wondering, what do I pray?

I would suggest the Psalms.

Again, taking in the Bible.

If you go to Psalms and you can just read any of those, those are written mostly, it was a prayer book for the Old Testament readers.

If you want to understand how to pray better, you could read that.

You could just pray those things.

Even David, David was a writer of a lot of those Psalms.

David was a man that was, the Bible describes, after God's own heart.

He was a king, a man that had such a relationship with God.

God ordains him, he leaves such a legacy that generations after David, God is saying, I am still faithful to my covenant because of what David did and the relationship I had with him.

And so David at times didn't have words.

David's son is out to kill him, and David says to God, he admits, I don't even know what to say right now, God.

I'm in such a hard place.

David just simply asked for God.

And I think we could do that.

When we're at the end of our rope, we pray.

When we're at the beginning of our rope, we pray.

You've noticed people have said all the time, well, there's nothing left to do now but pray.

David was in that spot.

David was saying, God, I don't know what else to do.

I've been calling out to you, but I don't think you're very close to me right now.

That's a great prayer to pray if that's how you're feeling.

Even David, with nothing else left, said, Give me God.

And that is definitely enough.

The thing about Jesus' ministry, I think, one of the ideas that I take away that's so astounding to me is this fact.

So Jesus was with God from the very beginning.

He was not like a little boy and then eventually grew up, and the New Testament comes along, and God sends him down, and Jesus is walking around going, So this is what my dad was up to.

It's not that.

He was there from the very start.

He saw it all.

But yet, you know what Jesus did when he comes down in the form of man to demonstrate God's character to us in that way?

You know what he spends a lot of his time doing?

Praying.

He is constantly in prayer.

He's praying before, during, and after, whether it's miracles, temptations, blessings for food, all kinds of things.

You you would think that God's very son, the one who just left heaven, has a direct link to God, would be like, Yeah, I know what he needs.

Of course I know what he needs.

Are you kidding me?

I wrote this thing.

And Jesus is still saying, Yeah, I'm praying because I need that.

I need that connection to the Father, I need that intimacy.

That's an astounding thing for us to consider that.

So the right nourishment that we're going to take in, ready for this race, is going to be the Bible, and we're going to pray.

And you see how those two build on each other.

I read and I pray and I pray and I read.

There's one more thing.

The text tells us in order to prepare for this ultra marathon, is we've got to deal with sin.

Sin is like wearing the wrong shoes if you're running, or maybe some heavy ankle weights, or something much worse than that.

Yes, you can put off sin.

And while that will always be a continual battle for us, this side of heaven, we'll always have sin to deal with.

It's the habitual sin that the writer of Hebrews is warning us against.

It's the one that has to be attacked with everything in our arsenal.

Look at what he says here.

He says, in verse 1, he's talking about, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, now, just the chapter before, the writer of Hebrews has outlaid this really long list of great biblical heroes, heroes of the faith, if you will.

And he's going through, and every one of them is doing something on faith.

And now he says, because we have those as our not just witnesses, but we have those as our examples.

These are the people we're going to look to.

We're going to be reminding ourselves how long God has been good to us.

He warns us of this.

He says, 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, sin is a weight, it will drag you down.

And you cannot wait for the conquering for you to start the race.

You've got to have a mindset, though, that you've got to kill it.

This idea that we're not going to just set it aside, we're going to be done with it.

It's going to be dead to us.

Sin cannot continue to bring you down.

Verse 4, the writer says, In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

Now, what he's talking about there is he's saying, Jesus dealt with our sin by shedding his own blood.

And he's saying very confidently, I bet none of you have done that.

None of you have had to do it to that level.

Now, I don't think he's talking about self-harm here.

I don't believe that at all.

But instead, what he is saying, not only the example that Jesus has set, that he's given his blood for our sin, he's paid the price for us, for us to be freed from that.

I think he's also telling us, hey, you ought to be able to do just a little bit more than you're doing.

You ought to be able to set that aside.

That habitual sin that has wrapped itself around you and it keeps you from running the way you should.

You ought to be done with that.

And if you're wondering, where can I seek help?

What does that look like?

How do I get people to come alongside of me and help me prepare for that?

Well, Grand Parkway is an excellent place.

We have community groups.

These are times that we'll start these in the fall, about September, where we meet in homes throughout our communities and we debrief on the sermon that we've heard.

We talk about what did the sermon say to us and how is it applicable to us.

We have discipleship groups where you get in a group of three to five.

They're men, women, students.

We even have them over the summer for our kids, so that you're reading the Bible together and you're understanding what this word has to say to me and how do I make it live in my life?

How do I take it?

With me.

We have Bible studies and midweeks and all these things going on, all to help you say, you know what?

I'm not going to be encumbered by that same old, same old weight anymore.

I'm going to turn that thing loose and I'm going to run just a little bit freer because of that.

Now, if the first key to this race is preparation and taking in the proper nourishment, then the second key to a successful race is you got to run it.

You've got to start.

This is us, ultimately following our conversion, after we accepted Jesus, after we've said yes to that invitation, this idea that we're going to start living for Christ, with Christ, because of Christ and for Christ.

We've got to actually start the race.

And what does starting look like?

And some of you have been at it a long time, I get that.

But for those of you that may be newer to that concept, what does starting look like?

It's laying aside that old life.

It's laying aside those old habits, not just sin, but the laziness of the habit of not reading the word.

It's the laziness of maybe having the same friends and influence on me that perhaps doesn't hold anymore.

It's exemplifying the Christian attributes that God outlines in his word.

It's telling others what we believe.

Sometimes this idea of starting the race, kind of getting out of the blocks, sometimes it's parenting with the future in mind, not yours but theirs.

We parent often for the right now.

And I get that.

We absolutely should.

But we also should be parenting beyond them 18 or 21 when they get out of the house and all this stuff.

We should be parenting them for when they're 48.

And what are they going to anchor to?

It's reminding ourselves what we believe, and nothing deters us from that.

Not news, not circumstance, not outcomes.

It's conducting ourselves and our marriage in order to die to self.

On and on.

You get my point about these examples.

It's presenting a Christ-like attitude and action.

And by the way, just a footnote to self, I'm really just talking to me right now.

Sometimes that's not saying what you think you ought to say.

I don't know if that's to anybody else, but it's a great note to me.

In short, here's what I'm talking about: this idea of starting the race.

How do we take on all of this?

In short, it's loving God with everything we have and loving our neighbors ourselves.

Jesus said, out of all the commandments, those are the two most important ones.

He told us that in Matthew.

They're kind of, they're trying to catch him and they're like, hey Jesus, which one do you think is the most important one?

And he says, Well, actually, there's two.

If you'll do these two, you get everything else.

Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

That's how we start the race, and that's how we continue the race.

And I want you to notice this.

We do not prepare until we're ready.

We don't prepare until we're ready.

Here's what I mean by that.

Anyone competing in any kind of race is preparing for a predetermined start.

Those guys that are running track, they know exactly when they're going to start.

They're ready for that gun to go off.

They're not going, oh, wait, wait, wait, I'm not ready.

I'm not ready.

I need two more days.

Can I get two more days?

Let me go ahead and get two more days.

A lot of us get caught in that preparation.

Well, I'm not ready yet.

I don't know my Bible well enough to engage those people at work.

I don't know.

They were talking about something, and I probably should have said something, but I don't know that I.

You hear the examples?

This idea that we cannot keep preparing and preparing and preparing just to wait to start.

We've got to start because that start time has already been predetermined for us, and it starts the minute you were called into a relationship with Christ.

And by the way, you get a new start every day.

As a believer in Jesus, every day is the next starting point.

Tomorrow is another starting point.

And that doesn't mean we waste today.

Obviously, we're not going to do that.

But there is daily preparation and a daily starting.

Now, while you're running the race, you've got to refuel via this idea of constant intake.

Yeah, it's Bible and prayer.

Yes, it is.

It's church attendance even.

It's getting to know who we sit with on Sundays.

It's getting to know who we're going to church with in our Bible studies, who our kids are hanging out with.

It's all of those things that we get to do here.

This is what keeps us in tune with God.

It's like the middle of the race, you know, water, or it might be that goo.

I don't even know if they still use goo anymore, but you know, this these things that kind of keep your sugar levels up.

It's this idea that I've got to continue that.

In that Barclay Marathon that I mentioned, what these people do is they'll make a lap, a loop, and then they'll eat a little something, take in a little nutrients before they go again.

We have to do that.

Refueling is necessary for consistency.

Now, where do we go to get refueled?

Well, I mentioned community groups and D groups, I mentioned Bible studies, but we also have not just midweeks, those are going to start up at the end of August.

This is a time on Tuesday mornings for our women and Wednesday nights for everyone, adults and students and kids, for us to gather around this idea of how are we shaped and formed spiritually?

What are we learning together?

And how do we help each other accomplish what we're learning?

Refueling is necessary for consistency, but it also means not just going to studies.

By the way, it also includes service.

For those of you that serve, you well know what that consistency will do for you and how it refuels you.

That idea that I am going to serve others does something more to us.

And if you haven't done it, that sounds like a very crazy concept.

But if you have done it, then you know, whoo, I do need to serve sometimes in order to keep that refueling idea, that consistency that comes.

All right, so we've prepared by taking in.

We're starting.

Now the third key of a successful race is we have to finish well.

How do we finish well?

Well, first we never quit.

We never quit.

In life, the ultimate marathon, there is no first place or last place.

It's just to finish.

It's just simply let's finish.

It's not a constant rest, and it's not a place that you have to get to.

For example, some of us are like, man, when I get to 63 and a half, I tell you what, I'm gonna take it easy.

I'm gonna.

There's a couple of guys in here right now.

Dave Bachman is one of them.

He's over 70 and he helps lead a small group in our student ministry.

Dennis Scott is another one.

He does the same thing.

Now, I'm thinking these guys aren't gonna make it.

They went to camp with uh the students uh and they were telling me how hot and tired they were and all that.

And I think some of you students need to step your game up, okay?

You got these 70-year-olds running rings around you.

It's Romeos.

By the way, if you've never heard of the Romeos, I call them Romeo's, let me explain.

It's take it easy.

It's retired old men eating out.

Romeo.

I change it from eating out to helping out because a lot of the success that we have here just from a physical plant maintenance perspective is because of those guys.

They're retired and they know a lot and they bring that knowledge here and they help us.

It's still serving your spouse for over 40 years, no matter how long you've been married.

By the way, just another footnote, I'm doing a uh a wedding next week, and in fact, today Annie Stevens uh is getting married.

This is our associate student pastor.

She's getting married today, and I couldn't help but think about this.

This idea that, you know, the vow that says in sickness or in health and all that.

You know, rarely is it that you understand what that means when you're giving those vows?

You spend a little bit of time together, almost 30 years for my wife and I, and you start realizing, ooh, I signed up for that.

Oh, if I'd have known that.

Now, for the record, because she's in here, I would do it all over again.

Okay?

The only difference is I might elope and take the money and run.

But what's my point?

My point is if we're going to finish well, then we have to consistently do all the right things.

And I get tired of doing the right things.

When is she gonna do the right thing for me?

When is he gonna do the right thing?

When is it gonna am I the one that always has to set the example?

Yes.

Yeah, quite frankly, yeah.

Yes, you do.

Do I have to keep serving when I'm 70?

Uh-huh.

And by the way, you better be taking care of yourself physically so you can.

Just a little bit of lanyap for you there.

Sorry, I got off script.

Abraham Lincoln, by the way, said, if you want a five-minute speech, give me 10 hours.

If you want a 10-hour speech, give me five minutes.

All right?

I've had 33 minutes to prepare, okay?

So stay with me.

By the way, this idea of finishing well sometimes for a lot of you, it's not spoiling your grandkids, it's investing in them.

There's a big difference in that.

It's making deposits of love and telling them stories of God's faithfulness.

When my son was born, uh, I went and bought a journal for him.

It's a real nice leather journal.

I don't journal.

You can barely read my writing, okay?

But I got this journal, I got a real nice pen to go with it.

And I don't know, in the in the beginning, it was almost every day I would journal.

And then about every week, and then about every month.

Well, anyway, he's on it, or I'm on his second one.

They're about as thick as this Bible is.

And when he left for college, I gave him the first one.

In that journal is all kinds of things that happen.

Everything from, hey, we went to grandma's for Christmas and we got these things.

Hey, we went to the beach this summer.

But a lot of what's in there is little notes and things to him that says, hey, today I got to raise at work.

Now, what's he gonna do reading that in college?

He's like, You better believe you did, because I'm spending it all.

He's gonna look back on that at some point and go, ooh, God, God kept coming through for us.

And the reason I wrote it in a journal for him wasn't so he would necessarily have to remember the oral history, but so he could look back and go, oh, look, on June 23rd, 1984, my dad was already thinking about who he wanted to marry.

Oh, look at this in 2000.

You get my point.

This idea of how do we invest in our kids and grandkids?

How do we invest in those that are looking to us to set the example?

It's a lot more than spoiling, it's faithfulness, and it's telling them God's stories.

Here's what Paul wrote.

He's a writer of most of the New Testament, and he writes a second letter to a young pastor that's at a church, and he says this about himself.

Paul says, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I've kept the faith.

In nearly every ultra marathon, certainly the Barclay one that I mentioned, most assuredly in life, in this ultra ultimate marathon, we are going to have scrapes and wounds and scars.

We're going to be able to point to certain things and say, Yeah, that's when I didn't make a great decision.

Yeah, I remember that.

Ooh, I know about that.

But these cannot be deterrents for us.

Those 15 people over those 30 years that finished that silly race.

I promise you, they had some scars and wounds.

They didn't want to go back out, but they did anyway.

They didn't use them as deterrents, but instead they were stories of triumph.

That's what ours are.

That's what the scars are on us and in our souls.

I believe they're stories of God overcoming, and it's indicators that God is done and is still doing work in us.

It's indicating that God is still in the miracle business.

Let's don't forget that.

We should expect discipline along the way because he loves us.

Verse 7 through 11.

I won't read all of that again, but it's this what you know, several sentences around this idea of God is gonna love you enough to correct you.

Listen to just verse 10 and 11.

And he's talking about the heavenly parents, excuse me, the earthly parents, and he says, For they disciplined us for a short time, get this, as it seemed best to them.

Well, every parent, I would hope, has good intention, but then get the flip side, the way God disciplines.

But he, meaning God, disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness.

For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

We've got to expect discipline.

We've got to look forward to it.

And it's hard at times.

I get that, absolutely.

But it's necessary and it's worth it.

I think one of the biggest favors my parents did for me is they use the word no a lot.

And I didn't realize how hard that was gonna be.

I thought, well, I'll tell you what, I'm the king of no.

You're gonna get a no.

And I look back on that, 22 years of parenting, and I'm like, whew, I think I should have used no more.

And that's nothing necessarily for him.

I think it was for me, for him to understand what's delayed gratification look like?

How come I can't say yes to everything?

What is it that I need to be disciplined toward?

We need to be expecting that in our ultimate marathon as well.

Now, I'm gonna share with you just for a second a little story here.

Well, you know what?

Let me say this.

I uh I competed in one race.

It was down at the school, it was one of these parent student races.

You ever heard one of these things?

What a dumb idea this is.

And so they invite all the track parents out, and you're supposed to run one lap.

I did.

But let me tell you something.

For any of you that have run track, you'll know what I mean when I say I got about halfway around that thing and the bear had a couch and a refrigerator for me to carry.

I came around to the end, I had not prepared because I didn't think we were gonna do it.

I thought it was a joke and they weren't gonna, and then I ran it and I started out too quick and it fumbled and went wrong.

And then I ended and I couldn't see for about an hour and a half.

No, no teasing.

The race was over, the stadium had cleared out.

Alex is like, Dad, we gotta go.

I'm like, is it over?

That's what it can feel like when we don't prepare well, when we don't sustain ourselves during the race, and certainly it can feel that way when we don't finish well.

So, what's the prize?

Why are we even competing?

What's the joy he talked about?

This idea of this joy set before Jesus.

Well, what he's talking about is eternal life in heaven.

But here's what I don't want you to miss we don't have to wait till the end to get that.

We've got a prize of running right now, and it's this idea of a God abundant life that He's called us to live.

So, how are you living?

Are you living just to finish?

And if so, do you understand the prize?

Do you understand what He's called us to?

Let me pray for us.

God, it's a I recognize a crazy analogy, but a lot of us in here don't even run.

So why would we think this is the way to signify that?

But God, your word is so good and so clear to us that you gave us examples of what this should look like.

Lord, I pray that we take in more of the Bible, that we do more praying.

And sometimes in that prayer, we're quiet and we're listening.

God, I pray that we would start the race.

Don't let us keep having false starts and thinking, well, when I get a little bit more ready, I'll go.

And God, I pray that we would finish well.

There's so many looking at us we don't even realize.

We don't have to worry about if our kids or coworkers or our classmates are hearing anything we're saying.

We better worry about their watching what we're doing.

And so, God, let us finish well as people are watching.

I pray, Lord, that you would guide us, direct, and lead us in this ultimate marathon you've called us to.

Don't spare your discipline, for we need it, because with it it's for our good and it makes us more holy.

I ask this in your name, Jesus, the one that endured all the way to the cross.

Amen.

Well, thank you for your indulgence this morning.

As you know, our tradition is to give you some questions, perhaps some mental worship.

There's just a few of them on the screen.

Take a picture, consider a few of those.

I'll come back and finish closing us.

There's a lot of ways to enter the race here at Grand Parkway.

I want to make you aware of some of those.

So let's give our attention to the video screens behind me to see what's coming up in the life of our church.

Here's what's happening at Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

If you're new, text welcome to 281-626-5707.

This way we can know you're here and get you connected with the church.

Our midweek classes begin next week.

If you're new here, our midweek classes are opportunities for spiritual formation that are limited in duration and specialized in content.

These occur on Tuesday mornings from 9 30 a.m.

to 11:30 a.m.

for women only.

And Wednesday evenings from 6:45 to 8 p.m.

for everyone.

They begin on the 22nd and 23rd of August and end on the 24th and 25th of October.

Look through our classes and see which one speaks to you.

It's not too late to register.

While you're registering for the classes, you can also sign up for our midweek meal.

It usually consists of a Chick-fil-A entree, chips, fruits, desserts, and a drink.

All for$6 a person or$24 for a family of four or more.

Our last men's breakfast is also next week on August 22nd.

It'll be a great opportunity to hang out with some friends before the busyness of the fall kicks in.

Doors open at 5 45 a.m.

and breakfast is free.

Finally, for all adults 60 and over, join us for lunch and connection on September 7th.

At Grand Parkway, we believe you are the most experienced people and that you're still in the game.

Come and invite friends.

For more information or to register for these events, please visit our website at grandparkway.org.

If you have any questions or want someone to pray for you, find one of our pastors at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.

Looking at some of those dates, I realize August is already almost past us.

Was it just me?

I went to sleep yesterday.

I woke up, it's August 13th.

How did that happen?

So all of you that are going back to school or second week of school, and all of you that are doing all of that, we're certainly thinking about you, and good luck.

And for those of you that are continuing in the slog of work every day, you don't get a summer off.

Continue the race.

Stand to your feet.

Let me offer a blessing.

God is presence, he's progress, and he's provision.

May He give you all three of those for you to continue running the race well.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

May you be blessed.

Amen.