"Running Your Race Together" - Hebrews 12:12 - 12:17

We've got a Bible. We're going to be in Hebrews 12. If you don't have one,

there's one on the table there.

And we all got into seventh and eighth grade. I remember them asking us at one

point if we wanted to be in track.

And I looked like this my whole life. And so my immediate answer was,

no, that sounds like torture.

I'd finally graduated from fifth and sixth grade where we had to do the presidential fitness tests.

And I thought that'd be the last time I ever have to worry about somebody standing

there with a stopwatch yelling at me to run faster and thinking that if I don't,

the president himself would be sad with me.

Turns out he was not. He didn't care. But what we found out once they're talking

to you about track and the way they sold it to some of us was,

you know, for about two months in a row, you'll get to miss school on Fridays.

You'll leave and you'll go to the track event. So then you start thinking,

well, what could I do in track? And then you find out things like shot put it. And discs exist.

And I'm like, perfect. I'll just do that. I can throw the disc.

Like I remember the first time I threw it, I threw it like a Frisbee thinking

that's got to be the most efficient way to do this.

You got to learn how to do things. And so me and a couple of my friends that

did not like to run were in track all of a sudden.

And we'd been in track about a month. And then all of a sudden they started having us run.

And I remember thinking, I don't know why I need to run to throw this disc thing,

but they would try to sell us on the fact that like, well, you're in track and that's part of it.

You're like, well, you left that part out on the front end, the whole running thing.

And I remember, you know, they'd have us run a mile and things like that.

And I, I was not good at running. I've never been good at running.

I never liked running, but it was nice to have other guys that were in there

that thought the exact same thing I did. And so when we ran,

it was just like a bunch of chubby kids at the back.

Like, we're going to make it, dude. We're going to make it. Like, you can do it.

And it was just an interesting time to realize like, oh, this requires more than I thought it would.

And I think a lot of times when you meet Christians, especially younger Christians,

they're sold what Christianity is on the front end.

And they're sold kind of a, hey, you just got to throw a disc,

man. Like, it's really not going to be that bad.

You'll get to skip school on Fridays. Everything's going to be great.

And then you get into Christianity, and then all of a sudden they start mentioning

all the verses they didn't mention before.

Like, hey, the world's going to hate you because it hated Jesus.

And you're like, I thought this was about children's ministry and church and

raising my hands in worship. It's like, well, it is, it is, it is.

And then they'll say things like, well, you will be persecuted.

Jesus promises you you'll be persecuted. You're like, time out.

I thought I was just throwing the disc. Why is there all this talk now of running

and working through things and being persecuted?

And this morning, the writer of Hebrews wants to remind his hearers that the

Christian life is a race.

It's a race to be run. It has obstacles and it has things in it that are tough,

things to avoid, things to look forward to, that you can't just say,

I'm a Christian and go, that's the end of it.

And go sit in the stands and watch other people run their races and go,

man, they're so good at running the races. Like, let me tell you,

it is so good to watch you guys run.

You're so fast. You throw that thing so far. I'm so inspired by your work ethic.

In fact, we even rode here on the same bus. We're on the same team.

It just doesn't work that way. And so again, this morning, we've gotten to the

point in Hebrews 12, where he's going to remind them of some hard truth about

what it means to run your race.

You remember in chapter 11, he did the hall of faith or so it's called.

We said that faith wasn't something that we earned. It was a gift that God gives

us and that we live out the gift of faith in our lives, just like Moses and

Abraham and all of those people in the Old Testament did.

Last week, we talked about discipline, how discipline is under God's sovereign

rule and control that nothing can happen to you that he's not allowing or causing to happen to you.

We talked about Job and we talked about all of the stories in the Old Testament

where it says that, hey, God is in control of your life.

And even when evil things are done to you, he's using those things in his grand

narrative for his glory and for your good.

And so with all of that in mind, he gets here in chapter 12,

verse 12, and he begins with, Therefore.

Lift your drooping heads and strengthen your weak knees and make straight the paths of your feet.

Make straight the paths of your feet. So I want to do this a little different

this morning. I just want to make a sentence with you.

I want to make a sentence. And so the first thing I want you to hear is run tough.

Run tough. This encouragement is lift your drooping hands, strengthen your weak knees.

The writer recognizes this is a hard thing that he's asking them to do.

That any Christian that's been a Christian very long is going to find themselves

with drooping hands, weak knees, chin to the ground, that there will be moments

in your race where things get really difficult and things get really hard.

And maybe you've experienced some sort of persecution or some sort of evil committed against you.

And he doesn't shy away from that here. He doesn't say, it's just gonna get

better. It's just gonna get better. Just keep pressing. Everything's gonna be okay.

He's already told them earlier in Hebrews, it's probably going to get worse.

If you remember earlier in Hebrews, he told them, hey, some of you have been

kicked out of your homes. Some of you have been pushed away from your original homeland.

But there's something coming that may be worse. He says just a few verses earlier,

none of you have suffered to the point of blood.

Again, what an encouragement. Hey, you've suffered, but you haven't bled yet.

So it could be worse and it might get worse.

His comfort to them is not, it's going to get better.

His comfort to them is, has been,

and will be, God is in control and he loves you and he cares for you.

So lift your head up, lift your head up, strengthen your knees, pick up your hands.

Not because it's going to get better or worse, but because God has done for

you what no one else could do for you.

The writer draws on some imagery that again, And the Hebrews,

these Hebrew Christians would have known from Isaiah 35, 3 and 4.

Isaiah is speaking to people who have been beat up and kicked around.

They've experienced the consequences of their own sin, and they've experienced

the consequences of someone sitting against them.

And I'm sure heads are down. They've got weak hands, feeble knees,

because they're thinking, man, this is not the way I want to live my life.

This is not the thing that I thought would happen when we followed the Lord.

So what does Isaiah tell them? Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees.

Say to those who have an anxious heart, be strong, fear not.

Behold, your God will come.

For some people in the world, they would read that verse and say,

man, I don't see any way that God could show up. I don't see any way that God could be here.

For a lot of people that would have read that verse in the New Testament,

their release from this world would have ultimately been their death.

Their life wouldn't have gotten easier as it went on.

Again, for these Hebrews, their persecution is going to get worse. We know that.

We know that there's a Roman emperor coming that's worse than the one they have

now that's going to commit worse crimes against them and treat them as lower than animals.

And so when he again tells them to be strong

and fear not your God will come what

he's saying is this life is so

short this life is so short and yes it can be difficult it can be hard and it

may not get better it may get worse but know that your God will come for you

and you will be with him for eternity,

that your eternity will be spent with no sin and no shame, no struggles,

no anxious hearts, no weak knees,

that God will come for you. He will show up.

We all need this from time to time. Realize this verse is not written to individuals.

It's written to the church, this church, this group of people,

just like Trinity Bible Church.

I can imagine this letter being read in somebody's house to a group like this.

And as it's being read for them to all hear the point of, hey,

sometimes you will need someone to be in your ears saying, hey man, pick your head up.

I know it's hard. I know it's hard.

Because if left to our own devices, we end up in self-pity, looking around at

ourself going, my life is the worst. Everything's failing.

Everything's terrible. I'm never going to make it. It's never going to get any

better. I'm just waiting to die, just waiting to die.

We need other people in our lives to do exactly what the writer of Hebrews is

doing and exactly what Isaiah commanded the people of Israel to do.

Pick up your head. He's really just pointing us back to the beginning of chapter 12.

If you remember, this is how chapter 12 begins. Therefore, since we are surrounded

by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin that clings so closely.

Let us run with endurance the race he set before us.

How do you run with endurance the race set before you? Do you try really hard?

Do you do everything right? Do you make sure that you've crossed every I and jotted every T?

Well, that's not his instruction. In verse 2, he says, looking to Jesus,

the founder and perfecter of our faith.

We need other people at times to pick our heads up, not so that they can see

us, but so they can see Christ.

They can see Jesus. They can see what he's done for them. They can be reminded

of the grace and mercy they've been shown in Jesus.

He, again, in chapter 12, quotes the Old Testament like he's done literally hundreds of times.

He quotes Proverbs where he says, make straight paths for your feet.

Make straight paths for your feet.

He interestingly ties this in verse 13 to healing.

Make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of

joint, but rather be healed.

I think this is a really important distinction that we need to make.

That when the writer here and Isaiah and ultimately the Lord ask us to run our race,

He doesn't just say run fast He doesn't just say run hard He doesn't just say

train really hard do everything you can man get up and fight Make sure when

your lungs start hurting and you can't breathe anymore.

Make sure you push through that. He says Hey before you run Why don't you make

straight paths for your feet?

In other words, why don't you plan your route accordingly?

It's one thing again to have the desire to run. It's quite another to consider how to run.

I mean, again, when we got on track, I had no idea there was a way to run.

My way to run was survive, right? You just, when you can't breathe,

you just assume that I'm either going to make it or I'm going to pass out. It is what it is.

They'll just roll me off to the side and I'll wake up later.

It's fine. Maybe I'll miss the fifth period. I don't know.

But they want, This writer wants us to think about the way we're going to run,

to think about the path that we're going to take.

I think some of the most frustrated Christians are the Christians that get up

every morning and decide they're going to run really fast and really hard and

do everything they can, but they don't take any time to consider what's the best way for me to run.

Like the first time you watch someone run a marathon who has no idea what they're

doing and the gun pops off and they take off full sprint, full bore,

you know, they've got 18 miles to run and they're out of gas by the first 10,

I don't know what, 10 steps or like I am beating everyone.

I'm going to run so fast.

They don't consider the race that they're running. And I think a lot of Christians don't either.

So we just throw effort and effort and effort at something.

And our lives look like this. And we hit rock bottom after we run super hard.

And then once we're at rock bottom, we rest a little bit and we go,

okay, I'm ready to get back up again. And I'm going to read 18 chapters a day.

And I'm going to pray in my prayer closet for an hour a day.

And I'm going to go to church five times a week. and I'm never going to sin

again. I'm never going to cuss again. I'm never going to do this.

I'm going to do it for you. And you take off running and you get two days in

and you have cussed and not prayed and not read.

And you realize like, this isn't working. This isn't working.

Because we're not considering how we should run our race. I think that's why

he connects this idea with the healing.

He says, make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not go out

of joint, but rather be healed.

I would imagine if you try to run full bore every day, simply trying to run

your race by sheer effort, you probably get injured quite a bit.

You probably get hurt and you're probably tired and your head is probably down

a lot. Your knees are probably weak a lot.

Instead, make straight paths for your feet. Consider the path that your feet are going to take.

Consider what kind of race we're running. Consider what kind of grace and mercy

you've been shown to even be invited to the race.

You may ask, well, how will I know how to run the race?

I think that's where he gets this next section from. So we're not just going

to run tough. We're going to run tough together. We're going to run tough together.

Verse 15, see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God.

Even jump back up. I think 14 probably captures this better.

Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness with which no one will see the Lord.

Again, the beauty of the Christian race is that it's not a solo venture.

You are God's child, yes. We've talked about that at length multiple times that

God has invited you into his family. You're his son.

You're his daughter because of his adoption.

He chose you. He brought you in. But that also gives you access to all his other children.

You are not an only child.

That may be the hardest lesson to learn sometimes is that you are not an only child.

You have other siblings in this world that God has brought into his family that he has adopted.

And as much of a pain as they can be and as much of a pain as you and I can

be, there is a reason that God has called these people into his family.

Has given us not just the gift of himself, but the gift of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Hebrews is full of these congregational, you could say family verses.

In chapter three, he says, exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today.

He doesn't say, stand in the mirror every morning and exhort yourself about

how awesome you are and how you're going to make it. And you're the one that's going to pull this off.

He says, no, exhort one another, surround yourself by people that will exhort

you, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Chapter four, verse 11, let us therefore strive to enter his rest.

Not let you, not make sure that you do this.

He says, let us strive to enter that rest. In other words, we're together. We're in this together.

And I'm for you and you're for me. And I wanna make sure that you are striving to enter God's rest.

And I need you to hold me accountable to strive to enter God's rest.

There's times where we need each other to walk up and say, hey,

man, it's time to get up and run a little bit. I feel like you're just sitting

there with your head drooped down, nothing going on.

There's other times where we need someone to come to us and say,

hey, I feel like you're running like a chicken with his head cut off.

And you got to take a break, man. Pull it back a little bit.

Of course, 1025, the most famous verse in Hebrews, possibly not neglecting to

meet together is the habit of some, but encouraging one another all the more

as you see the day approaching.

We don't just gather to gather We don't just gather to sing We don't just gather

to read the word We gather so that we can encourage one another To run the race.

Hard as it is to realize sometimes, we actually do need one another.

You need people in your life like this. Even Paul says this in Philippians chapter one, he says,

I thank my God in all remembrance of you always and every prayer of mine for

all making my prayer with joy

because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

I don't know all of you super well. I know a lot of you better than others,

but I'm going to assume and go on a limb that your Christian ministries and

what you've accomplished for God may not be quite what Paul's was.

At the very least, you're not an apostle chosen by God, blinded by him on the

road to Damascus, shown exactly how he will suffer.

Your shadow isn't healing people, probably.

Your sweat rags aren't healing people, probably. You haven't gone and planted

all these brand new churches. You haven't been beaten to an inch of your life

three or four times, only to go back into the same city to do the same thing.

And I'm not comparing you and I'm not saying Paul's greater than you are.

What I'm simply saying is that was Paul's testimony.

And yet he says that this random church in Philippi, we're partners. We're partners.

If Paul can say that, you and I should be able to say that to every single person

in our church. Hey, we're partners.

Whether you've been a believer for two weeks or 20 years or 50 years,

we're partners. We need each other.

You may need someone who's been saved two weeks to remind you of what the joy

of salvation looks like so you don't get lost in theology, lost in study,

simply to know what it is.

And you may need someone who's been saved 50 years to remind you,

hey, there's value in theology.

There's value in study. But we are partners.

Paul didn't view the church as a problem. He viewed it as a partner,

encouraged and strengthened by them.

We run tough together. We run tough together toward peace and holiness.

Again, strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness with which we will not see the Lord.

Peace is a tough thing. It's a tough thing, mainly because it's so misdefined today.

I think for a lot of people, peace is simply the absence of conflict.

How can you be at peace? Well, we just need to make sure everybody's happy,

make sure everybody's getting what they want, make sure everything's good.

Jesus says in Matthew 5, 9, as he begins the Sermon on the Mount,

Jesus says, blessed are those who are peacemakers.

Peacemakers. I think that the hardest thing here is we tend to conflate peacemaker

with peacekeeper when they are two very different things.

The church that wants peace never lucks into it. Peace is not kept, it is made.

Again, peace is not kept, it is made. Because peace does not come naturally.

You don't just wake up one day and are at peace with everybody. You have to work on it.

You have to be conformed to it.

How do you do that? How do you make peace?

Again, I think often the way we think about this is, I just need to make everybody happy.

I know when I first got into ministry, I felt like that was part of my job description,

was to make sure everybody got along.

So when there was conflict, when there was issues, when we had problems with

leaders or students or people in the church,

I thought my job was first and foremost to make sure people weren't going to

fight, to make sure people weren't going to be mad, to make sure that they would

leave church going, man, I'm just happier because I left.

The problem is that's the mind of a peacekeeper. And what ends up being sacrificed

at the altar of peacekeeping is always truth. Always.

If you're a peacekeeper, you find yourself probably often going,

well, I know that's true, but what's more important is that everybody's happy.

I know what's right. I know what should happen.

But if I do that, then there's going to be conflict. There's going to be struggle.

So I'm I'm not going to do that because I want to keep the peace.

Again, Jesus doesn't call you to be a peacekeeper. He calls you to be a peacemaker, a peacemaker.

Again, peacekeepers will neglect the truth in hopes to keep the peace.

Peacemakers know that the truth is the only way to actually have peace.

Honest with one another, to not shy away from conflict, but to deal with conflict

the way that God has called us to deal with it, to press into conflict and to

say, hey, listen, I don't like what you're doing.

I don't like how you're acting. Help me understand what's going on.

Let's open our Bibles and figure out which one of us is wrong.

This is Christ's example. It says in Colossians 1.20, for it was the Father's

good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him, That's Jesus.

And through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace.

How does Jesus make peace through the blood of his cross?

It's the only other place in the New Testament that uses that phrase peacemaker.

Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, right here in Colossians. And how does he

make peace through the blood of his cross?

Through sacrifice and conflict and hard things. That's how peace is made.

And as a church, our standard of truth is found in God's word and we cannot

ever shy away from the truth.

Whatever it says is what we're bound by. And if that causes conflict with the

world around us, then so be it.

Because we're not here to keep the truth. But what we do know is if we'll preach

the truth, if we'll teach the truth, if we'll live without the truth,

then God will draw people to himself.

And they will find that submission to God is the only way to true peace.

Not only peace with one another, but peace with God.

So we run tough together towards peace and holiness, but he's also gonna give

us some things to avoid, some things to avoid. Let me read 15 through 17.

It that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness

springs up and causes trouble.

And by it, many become defiled so that no one is sexually immoral or unholy

like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.

For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing,

he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.

Three things here that I think we can point out to avoid as we run tough toward peace and holiness.

We avoid gracelessness.

Gracelessness. It says, see too, that no one fails to obtain the grace of God.

This isn't an obtaining like you have to earn God's grace.

This isn't obtaining as in living in light of the grace that you have.

James 4, 6 says that after he goes on the first five verses of telling them

all the ways they failed and calling them an adulterous people and how could you do this?

James 4, 6 says he gives more grace.

When I say gracelessness is

to be avoided, it's not that grace is unavailable, it's that it's ignored.

Grace is available at all times to

all people. It's not that grace is not available, it's that it's ignored.

It's ignored when we do things like these, unconfessed sin.

We read our Bibles, we know that Jesus is faithful and just to forgive us our

sins, but what do we like to do? Hide it.

I don't want people to know my sin. I don't want people to know where I struggle.

No, thank you. I don't want to deal with that. And so I'm just going to have

unconfessed sin in my life. Again, is grace available? Yes.

Yes. He says he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins if we confess them.

And instead of walking in that, we walk in gracelessness and say, no, thank you.

It's available. It's ignored. What about just avoiding his word.

When Jesus is tempted by Satan, what does he say?

Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

It's not that the word is not available. I mean, that's never more true than

you and I, as we sit here today.

Some of you are looking at it on your phone. Some of you have a Bible in front

of you. We have Bibles on the tables. You can go and buy a Bible for $2.

The word is available. Do you have questions? Ask questions. That's fine.

But grace is available I would add to this Just to hammer home what I said earlier Avoiding each other.

We were sitting in the construction office talking about different

things and it was me and two of

the other project managers and two of us go

to church and one of us doesn't and one of the things that we kind of

got to talking about was church and you know how people fail and he can't trust

people at church and you know i don't know how you guys could go and confess

your sins to these people that you know maybe they're going to judge you and

it's like well i know i know eventually someone's going to sin against me because

i've sinned against everybody right i'm no better than them.

But to push the church away, to push people away because of your perception

that they're going to hurt you is to say to God, hey, listen,

I know you've provided a way for me to receive grace from people in this church,

in a church, the body of believers that you choose to be a part of.

But I just, you know, I think I'll just do it myself.

I'll just watch online. I'll watch my favorite YouTube pastor.

I watch my favorite YouTube worship leader. I can go to YouTube and go online

and pick my church like I would go to Walmart and pick a family meal and pick

my favorite thing this and favorite thing that.

Man, I wish church was that clean, but it's not.

But you need people in your life. So don't be a part of gracelessness.

Grace is available. Don't ignore it. Number two, bitterness.

Bitterness. He again quotes the Old Testament here, where he says.

Don't let a root of bitterness spring up and cause trouble.

I love this example for bitterness. Bitterness is allowing sin done to you to become sin within you.

Bitterness is allowing sin done to you to become sin within you.

I want to remind you like last week of a man like Joseph, his brother Solomon to slavery.

I would imagine if anybody would have any justified bitterness towards somebody,

it would be him towards his brothers.

But what does he do? He recognizes, hey, you sold me into slavery.

You meant to do that, but God meant it for good. Genesis 50, 20.

He doesn't allow the sin committed against him to become a root of bitterness.

Ultimately, First against his brothers, but ultimately against God.

You ever found yourself when someone commits a sin against you,

first your bitterness and anger is towards them, and then eventually it's God,

how could you let this happen?

How could you allow that? How could you do that? Why are you doing that?

Importantly, I would just remind you of how Christ treats you.

You and I have sinned against Christ more than anyone has ever sinned against us.

He does not look at you with bitterness.

He does not look at you with grief that he ever made you, that he ever invited you into his family.

He loves, cares, and forgives.

A quick side note here, I'm certainly not telling anyone that they need to be

reconciled to everybody.

Forgiveness and reconciliation are two very different things.

Simply saying that don't allow someone or something that has happened to you,

a wrong that's been done to you, a sin that you've experienced to become the

roots where bitterness can grow inside of you.

The last thing to avoid is simple worldliness.

He draws on an Old Testament story of Esau who traded his birthright for a soup.

You can remember Esau's been working in the field all day.

Of course, his brother, Jacob has been sitting inside cooking.

Esau comes in, he's hungry, he's thirsty, and essentially tells Jacob,

I'll give you what is mine if you'll give me some soup.

You read a story like that and you go, man, what an idiot. How dumb could Esau be?

Why would you give away the most important thing in the world for some soup?

How many of us trade things all day long. Communion with God for what?

What do you trade communion with God for?

For entertainment, for pleasure, for what you think will be restful,

for what you think will bring you more comfort, for the sin that makes you feel

better about the day but worse about your life.

We trade things all the time for communion with God.

He even ties this end of sexual immorality, again, I don't think that's an accident.

Number one, he does that because the culture that the Hebrews lived in is filled with it.

It's everywhere they look. They can't get away from it.

In much of the same way, the place that we live looks a lot like that.

You can't get away from it. If you turn on anything, if you look anywhere, you will find it.

It's if the writer of Hebrews wants to say, listen, if you aren't careful,

you will trade communion with God for things that bring you what you think is

more pleasure, more comfort,

that offers you something better.

You will lose sight of the fact that God has done for you what no one else can do for you.

As the Psalms say, that at the right hand of God are pleasures forevermore.

And we trade that for pleasures in a moment.

So we run tough together towards peace and holiness.

And we do well to avoid gracelessness, bitterness, and worldliness.

But don't lose sight of the whole thing being wrapped up in looking to Jesus, right?

Chapter 12, it's a letter. It's written this way for a reason, looking to Jesus.

Wake up tomorrow and go, all right, I'm going to run really tough together with

peace and holiness, and I'm going to avoid gracelessness. I'm going to avoid

worldliness. I'm going to avoid bitterness. I'm going to do it.

That's the worst thing you can do is to wake up and decide I'm going to do it.

Or you want to wake up tomorrow and pray and ask God that he would keep your

eyes fixed on Jesus, that your eyes would be fixed on him, that he would be

the one that lifts your heads,

strengthens your knees, lifts your hands and says, hey, we've got a race to run.

You can do it. You can do it by God's grace. You can do it.

Find someone to run it with you. Find a group of believers to run your race

with you. Find people who will pick your head up. Find people whose heads you can pick up.

Look around you and find someone who's weak and say, hey man,

let me give you some of my own strength here.

Be careful not to let gracelessness and worldliness and bitterness into the

church, but you do that together.

But we keep our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Let's pray.

Jesus, again, thank you for your word. Holy Spirit,

thank you that it's through you that we were able to not just read these words,

but discern them and hear them, that you supernaturally open our eyes and ears

and soften our hearts to what it is God would have to say.

Through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we have access to God as our Father.

We've been given the Holy Spirit as a seal and a promise.

God, we thank you for that.

Pray that we would be a church that runs our race as well, that we wouldn't

shy away from the fact that our race is hard,

that when someone asks us how things are going or how the race is running,

that we're not, we're not afraid to say that it's hard, that our knees may be

weak and that our hands may be drooping, our heads may be down,

God, because that's just the experience of every single Christian that's ever lived.

Be a church that doesn't look down on people who are struggling,

but helps them up, lifts their eyes, helps them see Jesus,

helps them be reminded that he's the author and perfecter of their faith,

that them running a race does not earn God's favor, that they've been given

God's favor so that they can run their race.

You know, that we would be careful not to allow things like gracelessness or

bitterness or worldliness enter our church that we would be peacemakers not peacekeepers,

that we wouldn't avoid hard things because we want everyone to be nice and get

along but that we would run,

headlong into hard things so that peace can be made,

so we can have communion with one another we're praying again for those who

weren't able to be here this morning whether they're traveling or at home with

family Pray that you'd be with them Comfort them Let them know their love We're

praying for our fellowship event even tonight We would have a good time together Good food,

good fun Just good togetherness Amen.