We noticed last week that the Christian life is presented here in Hebrews 12 as a race. It is not a stroll in the park. The objective, no matter how hard or how long, is to reach the finish line. We see that in Hebrews 12:1-3.
1 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, 2 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. 3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
How do we run this race?
First, we remember that others have successfully run this race before us. While these people were by no means perfect, they were commended by God for their faith. While some of them experienced some terrible things in this life, they were still commended by God for their faith. Thus, our author is encouraging these people to hang on to their faith in Jesus Christ. If they do so, they will win a better reward.
Second, we should divest ourselves of those sins that so easily ensnare us. Each of us is susceptible to some sin that easily entangles us and often brings us down. No athlete runs in a trench coat or leaves weights on their ankles. They strip down so that they can run freely and quickly. So we too must let go of those sins that we have become so friendly with, that we coddle.
But that’s not all. Our divestment must go even further as we “lay aside every weight”—literally, “the weight that hinders.” So, not only are we to lay aside and leave behind our sins, but also these weights that slow us down. Obviously, these are two different categories, but both equally debilitating as far as successfully running our race.
A hindrance is something, otherwise good, that weighs you down spiritually. It could be a friendship, an association, an event, a place, a habit, a pleasure, an entertainment, an honor. But if this otherwise good thing drags you down, you must strip it away.
The word “weight” comes from the Greek word ogkos, which describes something heavy and cumbersome that can impede a runner. In the athletic world, ogkos was used to describe when an athlete intentionally removed excess weight before a competition.
Picture a runner in our present context who is hindered by anything from sweatpants to hoodies to jewelry to bulky shoes. Allen notes, “In the first century AD, runners ran in the stadium virtually naked. They would enter wearing long flowing, colorful robes. At the start of the race, these would be discarded” (Allen, Hebrews, p. 573).
The athlete of the ancient world didn’t become “unweighted” by accident. He dropped all excess weight on purpose. He dieted; he exercised; and he shed every other unnecessary weight he could find to shed. This stripping process demanded his attention, his decision, and his devotion. It wasn’t going to happen by accident, so he had to initiate the process of removal.
Again, just like the sins, those weights may differ from one person to another, but each of us is responsible to identify anything that might be slowing us down and to get rid of it. These can be bad habits or bad attitudes. If the Holy Spirit is urging you to take a good look at your life and then remove everything that weighs you down and keeps you from a life of obedience. Then be honest with yourself and with God. If there is something, anything, in your life that your conscience keeps telling you to forsake, then get rid of it. This reminds me of Paul’s words in Phillipians 1:9-10. “It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent…” God doesn’t just want us to settle for doing what is good; He wants what is excellent in our lives. John Piper describes it as “getting things out of your life that make you more worldly-minded and putting things in your life that make you more heavenly-minded.”
Tim Challies identifies three weights that we need to jettison from our lives. The first one is the weight of mustering up the strength from ourselves instead of relying upon the power of the Holy Spirit. We cannot run the race in our own strength. We must rely upon God’s strength. The second weight we need to get rid of is running ourselves ragged. We need to learn to pace ourselves. Even spiritual disciplines, when we try to do all of them, are too much for us to handle. The third weight he identifies is running alone. Most of us know that we are more faithful to exercise when we have a partner. The same is true in the Christian life. We are more likely to stay in the race if we have others running with us. That’s why Charles Spurgeon reminds us: “He stands with us at the starting-point, and earnestly says to us, not ‘Run,’ but, ‘Let us run.’ The apostle himself is at our side as a runner.”
That is why you need a good church, a place for you to learn and grow in the fellowship of other believers who will get to know you, pray for you, support you, even rebuke you when necessary. Sometimes it is those very friends who will identify those habits or attitudes that, although not exactly sinful, are keeping you from running the race so that you can win.
Having “laid aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely,” now our author tells us “and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” This race is “set before us.” We don’t just run off in any direction we choose. In Psalm 139:16b David expresses his awe that “in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” God, in eternity past, chose us to be conformed to His Son (Romans 8:28-30) and determined the good works that we would do this very day (Eph. 2:10).
It is the Word of God that sets out that path for us. We don’t have to guess at what God’s will for our lives might be. He tells us. He lays out the moral parameters, our “lane” in which we are to run through the 10 Commandments and the commands of Christ in the New Testament.
We are disqualified if we run outside our lane or take shortcuts.
Do you remember the name of Rosie Ruiz? Rosie was a Cuban-American who was declared the winner in the female category for the 84th Boston Marathon in 1980. People were stunned by her victory, as her recorded time was the fastest ever run by a woman in Boston Marathon history. But eight days later she was stripped of her title when it was discovered that early in the race she had dropped out, hopped on a subway, only to re-emerge about a mile from the finish line where she joined the other runners and staged her stagger across the finish line in dramatic fashion.
What Rosie did makes for a good laugh, but there are no short-cuts in the marathon of the Christian life. The progressive transformation of our character into the image of Jesus himself calls for a sustained, life-long commitment.
Within those parameters each runner’s course will be unique. I may not be able to run your course, and you may find mine impossible, but I can finish my race and you can complete yours.
We don’t know where it will lead, how long it will go, whether it will be uphill or downhill, smooth or rocky, wet or dry. But faith is trusting God during the uncharted course, knowing that He has set before us the path that will best contribute to our growth toward spiritual maturity.
What we know is that we can both finish well if we follow the spiritual athlete’s guide to winning in life as recorded here in Hebrews 12:1-3.
Another factor in winning our race in life is that we must “run with endurance.” We can’t quit in the middle of the race when we are out of breathe and our side is splitting, or fail to finish the race like I did.
No race is easy. The sprints take everything you’ve got, your utmost effort. Long distance races take stamina and strategy. For the life of me I never could figure out why the quarter mile was a sprint! Every runner will get tired, will cramp up, will want to quit, but we won’t win if we don’t endure.
“Endurance” translates the ancient Greek word hupomone, “which does not mean the patience which sits down and accepts things but the patience which masters them…It is that determination, unhasting and unresting, unhurrying and yet undelaying, which goes steadily on, and which refuses to be deflected. Obstacles will not daunt it; delays will not depress it; discouragements will not take its hope away. It will halt neither for discouragement from within nor for opposition from without (William Barclay, The Letter to the Hebrews (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1957), p. 19).
Fast or slow, strong or weak, we must all keep putting one foot in front of the other for as long as it takes.
In Acts 20:24 Paul pictured himself as a runner who had a race to finish, and nothing would keep Paul from finishing the race with joy. In that passage, Paul spoke of “my race” – he had his race to run, we have our own – but God calls us to finish it with joy, and that only happens when we run with endurance so that we can finish our race.
We can experience the same satisfaction the Apostle Paul did as he neared the finish line:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:7, 8)
Paul finished his race, and so can we!
So far, the writer of Hebrews has told us to remember the encouragement of those who have finished the race ahead of us, that “cloud of witnesses,” so that we can know that we can do it, then to lay aside anything that would slow us down, whether sins or even good things that keep us from running our race. He also reminds us to keep at it and not give up, to “run with endurance.”
But that’s not all. His major encouragement is found in verse 2.
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.
Even more than looking at the examples of the “cloud of witnesses,” our eyes need to stay fixed on Jesus. I believe that by referring to Him by His name Jesus, our author is calling us to consider His humanity and how, despite all the opposition of Satan and the disappointments with His people and His disciples, Jesus actually ran a perfect race and won the race for us.
The author is telling us to “keep focused” on Jesus, to take our eyes off the circumstances and off the people around us and to keep our eyes trained on Jesus. The word carries the idea of riveting one’s attention; fixing one’s focus; staring intently without allowing the slightest distraction. Charles Spurgeon says, “The Greek word for ‘looking’ is a much fuller word than we can find in the English language. It has a preposition in it which turns the look away from everything else. You are to look from all beside to Jesus. Fix not thy gaze upon the cloud of witnesses; they will hinder thee if they take away thine eye from Jesus. Look not on the weights and the besetting sin-these thou hast laid aside; look away from them. Do not even look upon the race-course, or the competitors, but look to Jesus and so start in the race.”
It is so important for runners in a race to keep their eyes straight ahead.
On August 7, 1954 during the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, B.C., England’s Roger Bannister and Australian John Landy met for the first time in the one mile run at the newly constructed Empire Stadium.
Both men had broken the four minute barrier previously that year. Bannister was the first to break the mark with a time of 3:59.4 on May 6th in Oxford, England. Subsequently, on June 21st in Turku, Finland, John Landy became the new record holder with an official time of 3:58.
The world watched eagerly as both men approached the starting blocks. As 35,000 enthusiastic fans looked on, no one knew what would take place on that historic day.
Promoted as “The Mile of the Century,” it would later be known as the “Miracle Mile.”
With only 90 yards to go in one of the world’s most memorable races, John Landy glanced over his left shoulder to check his opponent’s position. At that instant Bannister streaked by him to victory in a Commonwealth record time of 3:58 (https://www.miraclemile1954.com/, accessed 6/26, 24)
Just like a runner must keep looking toward his or her goal, so we should keep “looking only at Jesus.” When we take our eyes of faith off Jesus, we begin to sink spiritually, like Peter did literally (Matt. 14:22-33).
Sometimes our biggest hindrance comes from looking at ourselves, our own failures and weaknesses, our inability to overcome temptations. This is why Robert Murray McCheyne so wisely said, “Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief! Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in His beams. Feel His all-seeing. Eye settled on you in love, and repose in His almighty arms.”
While a hospice chaplain I would read Scripture, sing hymns and pray for our patients. I began to notice as I sang through our church hymnbook that there are at least six hymns that speak of the smiling face of Jesus. Let the smiling face of Jesus encourage you daily in your race.
This is not to say that introspection has no place in the Christian pursuit of holiness. But we must be careful not to wallow in self-pity or self-condemnation. After looking at self and confessing our sins, we must then take our eyes off ourselves and focus on Jesus.
A. W. Tozer, in his book The Pursuit of God, counsels, “The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One.”
Paul reminds us of the value of keeping focused on Jesus and the transforming power it has in 2 Corinthians 3:18.
And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Nor are we to focus upon others. What a temptation it is for us to compare ourselves to others, either believing we are better than them, or don’t measure up to their level of spirituality. We are either proud or depressed. Jesus encourages us with this: Peter says in John 21, “Well, Lord, what about John?” And what did Jesus say to him? “None of your business. You follow Me.” Remember John Landy?
I love the funny joke about two old boys, Bubba and Willy, who were out in the woods hunting squirrels. Suddenly they came up on a big old mean bear. They both shot their squirrel guns at the bear. All that did was make him mad. So the bear started chasing Bubba and Willy. They were running side-by-side as fast as they could to get away from the bear that was right behind them. While Bubba was running for his life, he started kicking of his hunting boots so he could run a little faster. Willy looked over and said, “Bubba, why are you doing that? You know you can’t outrun that bear. Old Bubba said, “I don’t have to outrun that bear. I just have to outrun you!”
Well, we’re not running to compete with anybody else. Don’t look at the other runners. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.
We are transformed by gazing at Jesus. As you read the Gospels, slow down and look deeply at Jesus Christ. Jonathan Edwards remarked beautifully concerning this that we are to “take notice of Christ’s excellence which is a . . . feast” (John H. Gerstner, The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards , vol. 1 (Powhatan, VA: Berea Publications, 1991), p. 418
The human Jesus has known our experiences of trial and fierce adversity. When we feel that we cannot summon another ounce of energy for “the race that is set before us,” we must think of the race that was set before him. He endured, though his course was incomparably more difficult than ours. Jesus triumphed and, in his strength, so can we (Raymond Brown, The Bible Speaks Today: Hebrews, 228).
Grace Still Amazes 