Faith, Hope, Love, - Faith Rewards

So let's get into this.

I'm so excited about being able to present this word to you this morning.

I really feel like that it's timely and that God's put it in my heart for each and every one of us.

So we're in a sermon series called Faith, Hope, and Love.

And for the last several weeks, we've been looking at Hebrews chapter 11, which displays the heroes of faith.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

And we've looked at all of them and seen what we could learn from each of them.

And last week we talked about Rahab and Joshua and how they were faithfully committed to the Lord.

And so hopefully we glean from that.

And this morning we have the opportunity of sort of concluding this section on faith of the faith, hope, and love part of the sermon series.

Now, don't be discouraged because faith, hope, and love are intermingled with each other throughout the whole entirety of the thing.

So just because we move on to another subject, it does not mean that we won't be addressing faith at all.

Does that make sense?

And so the title of today's message is Faith's Reward.

Faith's reward.

Let's look at Hebrews chapter 11, starting in verse 32.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

And the word of God says, And what more shall I say?

For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

Women received back their dead by resurrection.

Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life.

Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment.

They were stoned, stoned, they were sawn into, they were killed with the sword.

They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth.

And all 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.

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 at the right hand of the throne of God.

Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for the tremendous impact of your word.

Lord, we thank you that your word is alive and powerful.

And it's like a sharp sword that cuts deeply and heals as it's coming out.

Father, we ask that the entrance of your word today would bring about transformation in our lives, that by the power and work of the Holy Spirit, that we would be changed into your likeness, into your image, that we would represent and reflect the image of God more carefully and fully and thoroughly in each and every one of our lives.

And we thank you for it in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So for those of you who have never written a sermon, there's something that may surprise you about the process of writing a sermon.

And here's what may surprise you it's not really hard to figure out what you are going to say.

The hard part is really figuring out what you're not going to say.

And what do I mean by that?

I mean that whenever you get into the Word of God and you start looking at a particular subject based on the context of the scripture that you're looking at, there's so much that begins to fire on the inside of you because the Word of God is so full of riches and dynamic uh life and all of those things.

So it's like at times I feel like uh I feel like that if I don't give the subject the entirety of a view, then I'm like mishandling that that subject, if that makes sense.

Now, here's the reality.

We understand that there are certain limits that we face here in this life.

Uh, one of the limits is attention span.

So we, you know, we could go for two hours, three hours preaching, and and still not really have conquered or really, you know, gone deep in a particular subject to the point to where we feel like we've really, you know, uh just just covered everything that needed to be covered, right?

But again, attention span.

And also there's a real thing.

Uh, time is real, and people's allocation of time is real, and so we have to pay attention to that.

And as we read these verses, I sort of feel like the author of Hebrews was feeling sort of that same sense of like, how do I handle this?

I feel like there's so much more that needs to be said about this subject, and yet he even at the very beginning says, uh, there's I'm like I'm running out of time.

I don't know how I'm going to be able to finish really the feeling or the thought that I feel like the Holy Spirit is wanting me to say.

And we have to understand that the book of Hebrews is basically written in Sramonic form.

And what I mean by that, it's it's basically written like a sermon.

And as you read the book, you begin to understand it's really about one thing.

The whole book of Hebrews is about the supremacy of Christ.

It's about the fact, and James brought this up very beautifully in our communion, it's about the fact that there are lots of types and shadows and forms and substances and things that point us to Christ, that help us to understand Christ from the old way and from the old covenant, but we also know that in him all of those things are fulfilled, and he is greater than all of them.

Amen.

Aren't you glad that we serve a God like that?

Exactly right.

So I like I said, I feel what he's what he's going through, and we're going to try our best to uh address these verses with context and with purpose and to get through them in a timely manner.

So he starts out by mentioning six names, six more names to add to the list of all of those who have gone before.

And if you want to read more about each of these stories, I encourage you to read the book of Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Chronicles, 1 and 2 Kings.

These stories are intermittent throughout all of those books.

And so if you're interested in more, please feel free to take some time in that.

So let's look quickly at some of these examples of imperfect people.

I want us to recognize that.

These are imperfect people that God used mightily, right?

So our first point is faith in God produces unlikely heroes.

Faith in God produces unlikely heroes.

So let's look at Gideon.

Gideon, this great man of faith, right?

He is uh threshing wheat, and he's not threshing wheat in the normal uh way.

He's actually in a wine press hiding out from the enemy that is surrounding them, and if they catch him, he could be uh really harmed or even or maybe even killed, right?

Um and so he's hiding away.

An angel of the Lord appears to him and says to him words that he did not believe, right?

He he called him a mighty, he said, first of all, the Lord is with you, and you are a mighty man of war.

And Gideon like did one of these because there's somebody else in this in this wine press with me, because that is not me, right?

How many of you are glad that God sees us differently than we see ourselves sometimes?

And Gideon is experiencing that.

And as he continues, he actually, I don't know if you're like Gideon, I am at times.

He asks God for several signs, and what does God do?

He gives him those signs, he doesn't rebuke him for that.

He proves himself to Gideon, right?

And so then God says to him, here's what I want you to do.

There's an army of 135,000 people that's coming against the army of God.

And so I want you to take your army, which is 32,000 people, and I want you to reduce it to 300.

And here's what we're gonna do we're gonna have you standing around the army, uh, you know, up on a hill, and you're going to have a trumpet in your hand, and you're gonna have a uh a jar in your other hand.

And uh when I tell you to do it, you're gonna blow the trumpet, you're gonna crack the jar, which has a torch on the inside of it, and you're gonna yell.

And that's how you're gonna win the victory.

Again, God's ways are different than our ways, right?

And so we know what happened.

We know that God stirred the arm the enemy armies as this all occurred against themselves, and they began to fight each other, and a great victory was won, a massive victory was won.

And then we move on to Barak.

And Barak led Israel into successful battle against the Canaanites, but he wouldn't go without a woman's help.

I'm not saying that to disparage women at all.

Deborah was a woman of God.

She was a judge in the Old Testament, she was also a prophetess.

And so Barak said, unless she goes, I'm not going.

And she went with him.

There was a great victory.

And what was the result of that victory?

They both sang an incredible song of praise to the Lord because they understood who was it that gave them the victory?

That the Lord gave them the victory.

And then we move on to Samson.

We all know probably about Samson.

He was strong in so many ways, and yet he was weak in one really important way.

How was he weak?

He was weak with women, right?

And that would have been his downfall, yet God used him in spite of his weakness, including his last feet of strength when he had been tricked and his strength had departed from him, and he was placed in a similar place where he was uh, you know, pushing, he was acting like they were treating him like an animal to mill the wheat himself, to be able to have to push this large uh rock around as it would crush the wheat.

And uh, but he asked if he could, and he was they they took his eyes away, and so he was blinded.

He asked if he could be taken during one of their huge celebrations into the temple to where that they and they brought him out there sort of as a display of how they could overcome Samson and in Samson the God of Israel, right?

And so where is he placed?

He's asked to be placed in the center of that temple and between two pillars.

And when they're all drunk to the hilt, what does he do?

Well, the by the power of the power of God comes back in his body once again.

He pushes against those pillars, and that great temple fell.

And in his death, more enemy people died than in his life.

God can turn anything around, can't he?

And then we think about Jephthah.

And Jephthah, although he was an illegitimate child born to a harlot, he rose to be the deliverer of the people of God from the Ammonites.

Who is to tell us that because of our backstory, because of our history, because of our family of origin, that God can't use us.

God can use, in fact, 1 Corinthians tells us he uses what?

The foolish things of this world to confound the wise.

I'm so thankful that God threw in these examples of people who weren't perfect, who needed help along the way, who needed God to fill in the gaps in major ways.

And then we move on to David.

And obviously we know that David became king and he also made huge mistakes.

But what was he known for most?

The mistakes or his repentance?

Psalm 51, and many other places you can see the repentant heart of this man who sinned, who repented, who God changed his heart, and you never see him repeating the same thing twice, the same wrong thing twice.

And what did he do?

He defeated Goliath.

He behaved well when King Saul was trying to kill him.

Uh, he was he became the king of Israel.

Maybe again, his greatest works were the writing of the Psalms.

Uh, and you can read those.

And most importantly, what was God's definition of David?

He was a man after God's own heart.

So we move on from David to the last person that's named here, and that was Samuel.

Samuel was the last judge of Israel and the first prophet.

He was the young child who Hannah had, and she said that if you give me a son, I will give him back to you.

And so Samuel was raised up in the temple, and when God first began to speak to him, he thought it was the priest Eli that was speaking to him.

And so he would go into him and say, Yes, sir, you called.

And he said, Eli would say, It wasn't me.

Go back to bed.

And he'd go back to bed.

And finally, Eli got wise to what was happening.

And so he told him to go back and listen.

And when he heard it this time, he was to say, Here I am.

And he did that, and God began to speak to him.

And that was the beginning of his prophetic ministry.

He was one of the greatest leaders in Israel's history.

And then beyond Samuel, we see the prophets who caught his called Israel once and again over and over to repent, to repent, to return to their God.

Their most important task, maybe beyond calling people to repentance, was to what?

Was to declare that one day there would be one who would be born in Bethlehem and whose name would be Emmanuel, God with us.

The writer now turns away from naming people of faith to citing great exploits that God did through them.

Let's look at some of these.

The second point is faith in God produces powerful results.

Faith in God produces powerful results.

What do they do?

Things like conquering kingdoms.

We've read about that already.

Enforce justice.

Think of kings like Jehoshaphat or Hezekiah, Josiah, who were characterized by righteousness.

They obtained promises.

God made covenants with his people, like Abraham and Moses and David, right?

They stopped the mouths of lions.

We can think of the famous story.

This isn't just a Sunday school story.

It actually happened and it's very relevant when Daniel, because he would not stop praying, when he was ordered to stop praying, he was thrown into a den of hungry lions.

And the Bible says that the angel of the Lord appeared and closed the mouths of the lions.

Is there anything our God can't do?

Amen.

And then we move on to the fact that another exploit is they quenched the power of fire.

And King Nebuchadnezzar, we remember the story where he built a golden statue of himself and he commanded everybody in the kingdom to bow down and worship before the statue.

But there were three Hebrew gentlemen, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who refused to bow, right?

And so because they refused to bow, he brought them before him.

And they he said to them, I'm going to throw you into the fiery furnace unless you bow.

And he bound them and prepared to throw them in the furnace.

And what were their words?

Think of these words of faith.

Our God, whom we serve, will deliver us.

And even if he doesn't, we will not bow.

What faith did that take to be able to make that secondary statement?

They trusted in the sovereignty of God.

They trusted God with the entirety of their lives, right?

And so we know they were thrown into the fiery furnace, and the only thing that came off of them were those things that were binding them, and they were joined in the fire with the fourth, who Nebuchadnezzar would say, looks like the Son of God.

Jesus showed up in the fire with them.

And when they came out of that fiery furnace, the scripture says they didn't even smell like smoke.

Nothing was consumed, like I said, except for the chains that bound them.

What an amazing victory that God wrought.

Another example is it says they escaped the edge of the sword, and there's so many examples.

David escaping Saul's attempts, Elijah escaping Jezebel's murderous hatred.

They were made strong out of weakness.

This is what God's love does for us.

It makes things that are weak strong.

Many of our earlier examples that we read in Hebrews 11 embodied this reality.

How many of you know when we are weak, we are made strong?

That is the testimony of followers of Jesus Christ.

The next thing it says is that women received back their dead by resurrection.

Elijah the prophet, we know, raised the son of the widow of Zarepath.

And Elisha, his underling, who had been trained up under him, raised the son of the woman of Shunim.

God is a mighty, miraculous God.

And just because this world says something is dead, just because Satan tries to tell you that the gift of God on the inside of you is dead, how many of you know God's the only one that gets to say whether something lives or dies?

Amen?

It's amazing to consider the times in our own lives, couldn't we?

We could line up down the aisles and we could take turns on the microphone, sharing of the great exploits of God in each and every one of our lives.

Times when it was obvious that he was with us because miraculous things happened.

And other times when we just felt him, we we experienced his presence even during times, especially maybe during times of difficulty.

What would it look like for us to ask the Lord to increase our faith so that we could look at these saints of old and ask God to help us to live by faith in similar ways to the way that they lived?

Are you with me on that?

Are you ready to do that?

Are you ready to accept the challenge in 2026 and beyond that we are people who are going to live by faith and not by sight?

God is still moving in mighty ways in this earth, and I want to be a part of it.

Now, the next section of our passage deals with something that I never heard preached in the church that I grew up in.

It was never preached because the church that I grew up in believed that suffering of any kind was always from the devil, and that it could never serve a good purpose in a person's life.

It's because if you deal with suffering, if you deal with difficulty, it means that you have a lack of faith, that you haven't believed enough, that you haven't trusted enough, that you haven't confessed enough, that you haven't done enough good things.

That was the way that we were taught, and that's what we believed, unfortunately.

What a tragedy.

What a sad thing to rob the people of God the value of knowing how God shows up and walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death.

My friends, let's not forget that He's with us.

He's with us.

You see, faith in God produces strength for trouble.

It's said again, some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so they that might rise again to a better life.

Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment.

They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword, they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth.

Because of their faith in the Lord, many throughout history have been subjected to cruelty that is unimaginable, unimaginable, unfathomable.

Make you sick to even think about it.

For most of them, for most of these that this these stories are recounted about, if they had simply been willing to renounce Jehovah, if they had simply been willing to walk away from their faith in God, their lives would have been spared.

They would have been released.

Things would have seemed to have gone better for them.

But how many of you know they had vision for something beyond this life?

They were looking for something which is called the ultimate resurrection.

They were looking for a time when their lives would be connected to God forever, forever in eternity.

And that was the choice, that was the only choice that they felt like that they wanted.

To make.

Observe how vile the malice that Satan and his cohorts have and show towards the righteous.

And I want you to know that he is still alive and active in this earth.

There are many, my friends, who this day are suffering for the name of Jesus Christ.

There are many this day who may even give their lives for what we have the privilege of coming together today and celebrating.

You see, Satan cannot get to God, and so he attempts to mess with his children.

But how many of you know if we can continue to stand and not faint in the day of persecution, there is a reward waiting for us, and we're going to get to that.

Not only have the people of God been violently persecuted historically, but they have at many times, in many places, also been forced to live in abject poverty and affliction without submitting to the desire to give up or to quit following after God.

This is just the truth.

This is just the reality.

I know in America it's hard to fathom this, but I'm telling you, Mark and Amy and others around us, Yuri and Olgan, others around us have traveled to places in this world where this is absolutely the case.

This is absolutely true.

You see, God's estimation of those who have suffered for his name is that the world is not worthy of them.

The world is not worthy of them.

Romans 8, 35 gives us hope.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long.

We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The thing that you couldn't separate from these people that went through these things and are currently experiencing them as well, is the fact that God is and was with them.

His love protecting them and keeping them even through the difficulty that they were facing.

Now, just as an aside, I want to say we can't count ourselves persecuted just because we're being bad people.

So many times I have heard people say I'm being persecuted, and it's just because they're not being good to other people.

So that's not, that does not count or classify under what we just talked about.

Okay, so let's be careful about that.

So let's finish this up.

It's our turn now to run the race.

It's our turn now.

We've looked at all of these examples over all of these many weeks.

But this author, this writer of the book of Hebrews, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, turns it, turns the table on us, right?

So one good thing to notice that all of the people that have been named in Hebrews 11, none of them were commended for their intellect or for their social position or because they were perfectly behaved.

They were commended for the fact that they put their faith and trust in the living God who promised that he would reward them.

That was what they were commended for.

Don't forget, it wasn't about the exploits alone.

It wasn't about even the things that were accomplished alone.

It was about the faithfulness of God.

You see, it's easy for us to walk in faith when we understand the faithfulness of God.

Right?

He is with us, helping us.

Reality, though, is that they all died longing for something else.

They all died with a yearning on the inside of them.

There was something that was driving them beyond what they could see in the natural realm.

There was something that was on their hearts.

There was a promise that was left unfulfilled.

And what was that promise?

All of them went to their graves, breathed their last breath with this on their minds and hearts.

Give us Jesus! That was the cry of every Old Testament saint.

Now they wouldn't know necessarily to call him Jesus, but they knew that God had promised from the very moment in time when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, there was a promise that there was one that was coming that was going to deliver them from their sin.

Look at Hebrews chapter 12, verses 1 and 2 again.

Hebrews 12:1

We get to share together with the reward that those who went before us have now experienced in Christ.

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 at the right hand of the throne of God.

So the writer of this book uses a picture, an image, something that the people who heard this would have understood.

He's using the Olympics as an example, and he's using the marathon run, which is was really the epitome, like the climax of the Olympic Games was the marathon run.

And the marathon runners would run into the stadium, and as they ran into the stadium, those in the crowd would would jump to their feet and they would begin to cheer loudly and celebrate the fact that the runners had endured to the end.

And so imagine with me that over the last few weeks, we've been the ones sitting in the audience and we've been applauding as Abraham and Isaac and all of these different examples of faithful people.

We've been celebrating them and learning from them, but there's a twist.

Now it's like there's a change, an exchange.

It's like we need to get up off of our seats and we need to run the race that's before us.

We learn that by a simple word, therefore.

Therefore, that's the change, that's the dynamic change that happens.

The author is saying, because of the testimonies of faith that you've been observing, it's time for you to begin to run.

So how should we run?

We should run this race unencumbered.

Unencumbered.

It says, let also, let you also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely.

How many of you know that sin is not a popular subject in the Church of America?

It's barely ever mentioned anymore.

But I'm here to tell you, God hasn't changed his mind about it.

And so why should we?

Sin is rebellion against God.

It's saying to God, I know better than you do.

Sin is saying that my way is better than your way.

Sin is saying, nice try.

You tried really hard, you wanted me to obey, but I'm not interested.

I'm gonna go my own way.

How many of you know that we as followers of Jesus Christ should live differently than that?

It should bot sin should bother us.

Now, it's easy for other people's sin to bother us, isn't it?

We can point them out left and right.

We can go to Walmart and point out sinners, right?

Let's not do that unless we're gonna witness to them.

Okay.

But how many times do we consider our own lives and consider ourselves?

All of us face temptation, don't we?

And we we we tend to have particular brands of sin that we struggle with the most, whatever that is.

Here's the good news.

One thing we know for sure is that God wouldn't ask us to change unless He was going to help us.

God's not going to ask us to lay aside sin or to walk away from sin that tries to grab a hold of our legs and restrict us from running the race.

God is there to help us.

The grace of God, which is God's power within me, to do what I cannot do in my own strength, the grace of God is available to us, empowering us to lay down lying and cheating and stealing and lust and worry and spiritual laziness and prayerlessness and on and on and on.

By the grace of God, we can lay these things down.

He placed his Holy Spirit inside of us to lead us, to guide us away from sin and toward righteousness, to stir us up, to convict us, to bring about transformation and change through sanctification.

You see, the great gospel journey in all of our lives is really just two things.

It's repentance and faith.

And my friends, that doesn't just happen at the point of conversion.

That doesn't just happen as we're born again.

It happens every time the Lord reveals something to us that needs to change.

What is our response to a living God, a holy God?

It is to repent, to say, yes, Lord, you're right.

I have sinned, I have fallen short.

And I ask you to forgive me.

And I ask you to help me to change by the power of your spirit.

And I'm gonna exercise faith in you.

I'm gonna put my trust in you that you're going to be able to help me through this.

Aren't you thankful for verses like 1 John 1:9?

1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Let this be the day for some of us that we lay aside these sins that have tried to keep us tied down.

Amen.

So we are also running an endurance race.

That is the type of race that we're running.

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

How many people have you known through the years that seemingly started out with a sprint?

They were running fast, and then only to find out days, weeks, months, years later that they have fallen aside, that they've fallen by the wayside.

I believe there may be two main reasons for this to occur.

The first one is maybe they were never truly converted in the first place, and they just got excited about something, but weren't really excited about the thing they needed to be excited about.

This happens more than you know.

And the second reason maybe is maybe they didn't understand the nature of the race.

It's like if I could be saved right now and then boom, I'm gone.

Zap me out.

You know, uh if that could be the case, then maybe that would be okay.

But this is not a quick race.

This is a race of endurance.

This is a race where you have to find your breath.

This is a race where everything within you will hurt at times.

This is a race that attempts to say to you, it's time to quit.

It's time to sit down.

But I'm here to tell you, we must consider the race differently than that.

We must consider it as a marathon.

We must think of it as a lifelong pursuit.

And we must run this race with patience and perseverance, knowing that the Bible promises us that those who what?

Endure to the end will be saved.

There is a finish line that we are all running towards.

We're gonna talk about hope in the next few weeks, and that's gonna give us a lot of understanding on how to endure well.

And so we're not gonna linger too long on this, although I'd like to, okay?

And next, we must look to Jesus as we run our race.

Looking to Jesus.

Do you realize?

Do we all realize that Jesus ran the perfect race?

Jesus ran the perfect race.

He is our example.

He set us up.

He is the beginning and the ending of our faith.

He's the founder and perfecter of our faith.

We can't even have faith without Jesus.

It's the requirement.

Jesus is the one who begins us in it, and he's the one who is responsible for finishing it in us.

He's not only the object of our faith, the one who we put our trust in, he's also the one who stirs it up.

He's also the one who begins it and who finishes it.

He's the beginning of our race and the end.

I'm going to say it over and over again.

He's the author and the finisher.

Philippians 1, 6 says, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Aren't you thankful that we're not running alone?

Jesus ran the race, and it would have been easy for him to say, I'm done.

Good luck.

Have fun.

No, not only did he set the pace, not only did he run the race, not only did he give us an example, but he's the coach that by the Holy Spirit inside of us is coaching us up as we run the race.

He's telling us and encouraging us and strengthening us and comforting us and helping us on the way.

And we're going to say in just a minute, he'll be there in the end.

Jesus endured incredible suffering, joyfully, it says.

Joyfully.

We can't imagine what this perfect man went through undeservedly.

He, of all people in all of history, did not deserve what came to him.

He came to show us the Father in word and in deed.

He now willingly lay down his life, enduring the mockery, the physical abuse, allowing our sins and our shame to nail him to the cross, so that we could become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

This is the gospel.

This is the truth that we believe.

I believe that the joy that Jesus experienced when he was on the cross, it was not like he was like in a like a strange state of mind to where he was just like oblivious to it all.

He chose joy.

And I believe that he chose joy because he could see backward and forward.

He could see all of those that we talked about in the weeks before and how they would be able to enter into the kingdom of heaven because of him.

And he would look forward 2,000 years maybe into the future.

And maybe he even imagined this gathering this day in this room and said, It is worth it for them.

See, the joy, in my opinion, set before Jesus was us.

Jesus has been exalted high above all things.

It says that he is seated at the right hand of the Father.

Jesus was rewarded for his faithfulness.

He was given the seat of highest honor.

He was taken into the Father's presence as the conquering hero over death, hell, and the grave.

And at his name, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

What is faith's reward?

Jesus is faith's reward.

Jesus is faith's reward.

You see, the people of old weren't looking necessarily even for a place.

They were looking for a person.

They were looking for Jesus.

They weren't interested in being satisfied with achieving a certain status or accomplishing amazing feats or making the writing of the New Testament.

They took their last breath again, looking for Jesus, crying out for Jesus.

Give us Jesus.

Now let's head back into that arena and imagine the stands now are full of all of the saints who have gone before, and they're all standing in the arena, and they're all clapping their hands, and they're all shouting with joy as each and every saint leaves this earth and begins to ascend into heaven.

And as that is happening, you can imagine the spectacle of this as they're cheering on as we run those last few steps, maybe even stumbling or falling or crawling or walking or whatever it takes to get across the finish line.

But I'm here to tell you that as as important and as as lost as we could get in the throng of the crowd, there's something else that grabs the attention.

There's something else that draws our view forward because you see, there's someone who's standing on the podium in the distance.

There's someone who's waiting for us to arrive.

There's someone who looks recognizable and yet in a lot of ways we can't even imagine or fathom.

You see, he's clothed with a long white robe with a golden stash around his chest.

His hair is white like wool or snow.

His hair, again, his eyes are like a flame of fire.

His feet are like burnished bronze.

His voice is like the roar of many waters, and his face is like the bright shining sun.

And he is standing there with his arms wide open.

He is standing there and he's paying attention.

He's standing there and he's ready to welcome each and every person who has put their faith, hope, and trust in him and have run their race to finish the race.

And he's standing there to say the words that all of us have longed to hear since we first said I do to him.

Well done, my good and faithful servant.

You see, he is the bright and morning star.

He is the lily of the valley.

He is the fairest of ten thousand.

He's the answer to all of our questions.

And he is our savior and Lord.

Faith reward is Jesus.

Would you stand with me?

I don't want to end the service.

Period.

I don't want to end the service without saying something like this.

If you're not in the race yet, please make today the day you enter the race.

And I gave you the way to do that.

It's simple and yet it's the hardest thing you'll ever do.

Not in the sense of the reward, but in sense of the cost.

Because there is a laying down of things, there is a walking away from things, there is a new way of living, but I'm telling you, it's the it's the best way.

It's the ideal way, it's the way that God has ordained for people to live.

And so if you have not yet entered the race, if you have not yet put your faith, hope, and trust on Jesus Christ, I'm asking you to consider doing that even now as we speak.

Just simply cry out to God.

Just say to him, God, I'm a sinner.

I've made huge mistakes in my life.

And I don't know, I can't fix myself.

I've tried religion.

I've tried doing things my own way.

I've tried the ways of this world, and nothing is satisfying me.

Would you forgive me, please, and cleanse me from all unrighteousness?

I believe in Jesus Christ.

I believe that he is your son.

I believe that he came to this earth and lived a perfect life, that he showed me who you are, Heavenly Father.

I believe that He died a death that I deserve to die.

And I put my faith in the finished work of him at the cross.

I believe that he rose from the dead and that he ascended into heaven and that he's alive and well.

And today, as an act of faith, I put my faith in him.

I'm asking you to do that.

I'm also asking that at the end of the service that you would come down.

We're going to have a prayer team that will be here.

And I would ask that you come and let them pray with you.

We have a Bible that we'd like to give you.

We just want to encourage you in your walk with God.

Also, if you're tired of running, if you feel like you can't go on, I want you to know that the rest of us are running too.

And it's not a competition.

And if I need to stoop down, or you need to stoop down and help me like you did five or six years ago, when I was at my my weakest point.

If I need to stoop down and help you along your way, I'll do it.

And every other person in this room who's a follower of Jesus Christ will do it too.

Don't feel like you're running this race alone because you're not.

God is with you, and the rest of us are with you too.

We can do this together.

So, Father, we pray for these things.

First, I do ask, Lord, that you would draw hearts to yourself, even those that are watching online today who have never entered the race themselves.

I ask, Father, that this day that this would be the day of salvation, that they would choose this day whom they would serve.

And Father, I also ask that if there are those who are tired, who are weary, I thank you, Father, for strengthening them.

Strengthen them for the journey, strengthen us for the race.

Strengthen us, strengthen us with endurance.

Fill us with your Holy Spirit.

And Father, help us to understand that there's other brothers and sisters around us that are here to walk with us, to help us, even sometimes to maybe even uh carry for a certain period of time.

Help us to understand, Lord, that we are not alone.

We give you glory for it in Jesus' name.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May He cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.

May He lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

I'm gonna stay here as well if you want to come and talk to me about your faith decision.

I'm here.

I'd love to talk with you about it.

That the altar team would come now, the prayer team would come and be ready to receive people.

You can come for any reason.

Any need that you might have, please come.

Bless you guys.

Have a great week.