Hebrews 12:1-3

is and the communion of saints for christian fellowship for the recorded examples of your faithfulness to your children and your church we entrust ourselves to you and we bless and adore you for you are the god of all comfort and all good in jesus name amen good morning church at this time we're going to go ahead and dismiss our three to five-year-olds and the six and seven-year-olds to their classrooms and as they are heading out as many of you know my wife is still walking through treatments right now and she just finished up her third week of radiation and is is doing really well definitely

fatigue is starting to set in a little bit more but as she's going through these radiation treatments that's really limited um my kind of work capacity right now as i'm you know home in the mornings kind of taking care of of the kids and being stay-at-home dad in that respect and so so what we wanted to do kind of during this season um just so that i can be a little bit more flexible and available is allowing one of our church planning networks to just really bless us um by just sending uh preachers to be able to take one sunday each month and so for

the next uh literally the next four months the first sunday of each month is going to be a guest speaker being able to come in and bless our church and so i get the uh privilege i was actually out in north carolina for a couple of days and and actually got to meet rich for the first time while out there but one of our networks uh summit collaborative that's based out of summit church in raleigh durham they have just an incredible plethora of preachers and teachers and so we get the blessing of being a part of that network that allows them to pour into churches

especially at times when they're just in a little bit of extra need and so we find ourselves in that season right now and so we've got the privilege of having pastor rich bowman be able to come lead us in the word this morning pastor rich is the pastor of summit church downtown durham and is going to be pastoring there for a few years before eventually he goes off and plants his own church as well and so would you give him a warm welcome as he comes up this morning to lead us in the world all right all right it is on you guys can hear

me well all right district church it's so good to be with you this weekend um i told dwayne that that picture there might be a little bit of false advertisement because gravity has taken over and the hair on my head has now kind of you know come down a little bit but that is my wonderful daughter elena my oldest that i'm holding there in my right arm and then my wife carrie and then my youngest daughter isla i actually i'm originally from houston texas and i went to school in fargo north dakota can you believe that at north dakota state university um and anytime i

tell people that the next question is how in the world did you end up all the way in fargo north dakota from houston texas number one ain't too many people up there that look like me okay but number two that's pretty far i always tell people that uh when my mother and dad realized that a full scholarship meant a free education free meal plan and free housing they shipped me off like i was first class priority mail and the rest was history and so here i am all right there i am so such a pleasure to be with you i'm excited for what god has

for you this morning and my hope is that you would walk out of here transformed my hope is that you would walk out of here beholding jesus and more like him and so to that end why don't you join me in a word of prayer father we thank you for the privilege of being able god to dig into your word your word is life-giving god it is alive and active sharper than any double-edged sword and we thank you that it does not return void god the greatest need we have today is to behold you to see you to be transformed god that the inner being

of our souls would be more confirmed conformed to the inner world of jesus christ so god i pray that you would help me to do that today as i lift the eyes of my brothers and sisters towards christ you got to pray that you give me clarity of thought and precision of speech and god you would take the fish and loaves of this sermon and multiply to feed us this morning we thank you for who you are in jesus name we pray amen in the summer of 1992 olympic runner derrick redmond eagerly stood at the starting line in barcelona ready to run the 400 meter

olympic semifinal race at this point in his career although he had suffered a few injuries he was in peak condition and he had already proven to be a great track athlete in fact seven years before his appearance in barcelona he had broke the british record in the 400 meter race and in 1986 he won the gold medal in the 4x4 meter relay at both the european championships and the commonwealth games needless to say derrick and his fans were confident that he had this race in the back but unbeknownst to him this would be the last race he'd ever run runners take your mark get set

ready pow the gun goes off and these olympic athletes start making their way around the track exerting effort and energy when all of a sudden about 15 seconds into the race derek collapses to the ground in agony holding his hamstring as the crowd coaches and commentators were stunned at what they were witnessing in an interview with bbc derrick said that as he was on the ground in agony and pain he remembered where he was he remembered that he was in the olympic semifinal race and he said to himself i am going to finish this race this might be the last race i ever run so

i am going to finish he then gets up and he begins to hobble his way around the track when out of nowhere his father comes out of the crowd screaming derek derek it's me your father and eventually with the help of his father he makes it to the finish line with tears running down his eyes a torn hamstring and a crowd full of people applauding his devotion to finish the race he has started despite the adversity he had experienced in many respects derek's story is a great illustration of the christian race commencing at the starting line of salvation we begin to take off around the

track of life only to meet adversity and affliction along the way i mean let's be honest who among us hadn't experienced the frustration and the affliction of unmet expectations like that picture perfect dream you had for your future that was shattered by an unexpected life life-altering health issue or maybe it was that vision you have for your marriage when he got down on one knee and he looked you in the face and he said will you marry me and standing over him you excitedly said yes i will but now the sweet presence of your spouse has turned sour because you're drifting away or maybe it's

the difficulty of a loss like that precious seed you carried in your womb that you were joyfully expecting to see on the screen at your ultrasound only to have your joy turned into sorrow because of a missing heartbeat or maybe it's the erosion of a close relationship that you anticipated would last for a lifetime but the wounds and the offense cut so deeply that it just can't seem to heal or maybe it's the erosion of relationships among your classmates and co-workers because of your christian views in their world view you are homophobic racist and culturally irrelevant because you're a christian and so they don't want

to befriend you and you feel the sense of loneliness and that's not to mention the constant assault of satan against our souls like a nagging mosquito he is constantly attacking us with one lie after the other the difficulty and the adversity that we experience whether by virtue of being a christian or by virtue of simply living in a severely marred world is undeniably difficult and the temptation is for the suffering and the weight of it to become so burdensome that we give up we tap out we deconstruct ourselves into so much doubt that we no longer think the race is worth running so how do

we press on and not grow faint in our faith how do we carry on and endure and press through or as my mother would say growing up son how do you keep on keeping on despite what's going on i want to invite you to turn with me to the book of hebrews we're going to be camping out and parking in chapter 12 verses 1-3 but let me take a second to bring you up to speed on the context leading up to this chapter commentators say that the writer of hebrews is addressing a jew a group of jewish believers who were under persecution for embracing jesus

christ as their lord and savior but as their suffering intensified as the as the weight of their persecution began to expand and get bigger and bigger and weightier and weightier they began to drift back into a way of thinking and living that was anti-gospel for example it's likely that because of their suffering they were undergoing and the because of their suffering and because of the influence of false teachers they began to doubt the supremacy and the deity of jesus christ which is why the author of hebrews opens up in the beginning chapter by focusing our attention on that very subject who jesus is and the

position that he occupies specifically in chapter one he goes to say long ago and many times and in many ways god spoke to our fathers by the prophets but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son whom he appointed the heir of all things through whom also he created the world he is the radiance of the glory of god and the exact imprint of his nature and he upholds the universe by the word of his power after making purification for sins he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high having become as much superior to the angels as

the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs from these verses alone we learn that god has spoken to us through his son jesus that god has appointed jesus as the heir or the inheritor of all things that god has created the world through jesus that jesus reveals and expresses the exact imprint of the nature of god jesus sustains the universe by the word of his power jesus cleansed us from our sins and jesus is exalted at the right hand of god and jesus is much more superior to the angels and though many jews would have professed to believe this their persecution was such

that it wasn't long after that they began to drift and forget these foundational truths and fall back into a works-based system for righteousness this is also why the author strives really really hard throughout the entire book to prove that jesus is better if you want to sum up the entire book of hebrews in three words it is jesus is better jesus is a better prophet jesus is a better priest jesus makes a better promise jesus is a better hope jesus offers a better sacrifice this book is all about jesus and the author provides both warnings not to drift from jesus and encouragement to endure all

throughout the book and it's also off the heels of that context that the author of hebrews opens up chapter 12 with the encouragement for us to endure our race in the midst of suffering and just like every great runner has to ask the question how will i endure my race to the end so the christian must ask the question how will i endure my christian race to the end i want you to pick me up in chapter 12 starting in verse 1. here's what the writer of hebrew says therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses let us also lay aside

every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us i'm going to have y'all talk back to me a little bit i want you to repeat this after me say let us run with endurance the race that is set before us i want you to notice both the word endurance and the word race with me endurance has to do with a steady determination to keep going like the energizer bunny that keeps going and going and going endurance is continuing on when everything in you wants to give up or everything outside of you seems like

it's trying to tempt you to give up the word race in greek is called agon and it's where we get the word agony from and it denotes the idea of struggle of battle of resolve and the portrait that the author has in mind here as he's thinking about what the christian race is like it's a portrait and a picture of a of a track runner of a racer who is resolved and determined and enduring to finish to the end and to give it everything that they've got in other words what he's trying to say here is that the race is not something that we passively

run it's not a let go and let god type of race as if we have no responsibility in fact we have responsibility to run because we've been given the resources to run through the holy spirit this is why the apostle paul would say in philippians 2 work out your salvation work out your salvation work out your salvation with what fear and trembling for it is god who works in you both to will and work for his good pleasure our responsibility is to work out not work for fundamental difference it is to work out our salvation and god's responsibility is to give us both the desire

and the power to accomplish his purpose and sometimes the effort that it takes to work out your salvation or to endure in your race it's grueling it requires self-discipline it's hard it's hard sometimes to pick up your bible and remember and to write out and to meditate and contemplate on the promises of god when there's a gap between what you are experiencing in your suffering and what god has promised god why is my wife losing her hearing now why did we have to suffer four miscarriages i feel alone in this but you said that you were a very present help rocking a refuge in a

time of trouble and i don't feel it it's hard to continue praying when you've been praying for years and nothing has changed about your situation i believe the author the writer here god knows that sometimes it is a grueling race which is precisely why he draws our attention to the fact that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses has an encouragement to remind us that you that we are not alone that is the first key to enduring in your race it is to be reminded to look around and remember you are not alone there are a great cloud of witnesses surrounding you and

in the immediate context this language of cloud of witness is a reference to the dense catalogue of saints in hebrews chapter 11 that have run the race like us that have endured like us that have struggled like us that has suffered like us and it's as if he's a coach gathering his track team for a pre-race prep talk or pre-race talk of encouragement to say come around team get around me this will be the hardest race that you ever run but oh before you run i want you to remember that you are not alone i want you to see that wall of names over there

those are the ones who were tortured refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life oh but don't forget the names of those brothers and sisters over there those are the ones who suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment for the sake of jesus christ but let me show you the pictures of the men and women over here those are the ones who were stoned they were sawn in two they were killed with a sword all for the sake of christ some even traveled around in skins of sheep and goats destitute afflicted and mistreated oh but at least

you forget we need not go all the way back to the old testament saints let me remind you of a north african woman in 203 a.d by the name of perpetua who was sentenced to die in a roman coliseum by wild animals and after surviving the attack she was lined up to be killed with a sword or that 19th century african-american pastor by the name of gardner c taylor who walked a long dark tunnel of adversity he lost a parent at a young age he lost his wife he saw his church burned down he suffered racial discrimination and even jail time for his participation in

the civil rights movement he suffered so much affliction that he once wrote to these words i know what it is to have great sorrow i know what it is to drench your pillow with tears i even know what it is to hope against hope but you don't wake up the next morning life can be very difficult life can be very difficult but we don't even have to go back that far let me tell you about the cloud of witnesses sitting next to you like your sister who's suffering with health complications like your brother who's dealing with mental illness like your volunteers who show up here

every sunday yet they are struggling with depression and discouragement yet they are running their race and they are fighting the good fight of faith and i get it some of you may not be there today you may not be feeling that type of resolve and that type of determination you're burnt out and you feel like giving up you feel like tapping out because for the life of you you can't understand why you continue to struggle with the same thing over and over and over again it's confusing as to why the same sin struggles seem to persist in your life it's confusing while pain and suffering

seems to be your closest companion his heart you're emotionally exhausted from constantly dealing with discouragement and despair and if that's you i just want to encourage you and remind you to look around you are not alone you are not alone and you have a cloud of witnesses a cloud of saints you have a testimony of believers who have proven that the christian race is not an impossible race oh would you let their lives encourage you not as a way that you not in a way that you worship them for the best of men are meant it best but in a way that they inspire you

in a way that they encourage you pick up a christian biography and read about those who have suffered for years yet they finish the race ask your brothers and sisters in here how have they suffered in their walk ask them what god has taught them in suffering and ask them why in the world are they continuing to look to jesus and run this race and i believe that god will inspire you through their lives so look around and remember that you're not alone the writer goes on to say let us also meaning just like our examples lay aside every weight and every sin which clings

so closely and this leads me to the second key for enduring the race that we have been called to endure in the midst of suffering we have to lay it down the distractions are hurting our race the first one is look around remember you are not alone but this second key is lay it down the distractions are hurting your race listen what the author says let us also meaning just like what i mentioned our examples lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely notice that there are two types of distractions that the author mentions here he mentions both weights and sins a weight

isn't something that is inherently bad but neither is it conducive to you running your race i know that you probably wouldn't be able to tell but in high school i was a 400 meter track runner and one of the things that i used to do to train is i would run with ankle weights on which is probably why i have really jacked up knees as it is the weights were intentionally meant to slow me down and to teach me to run just as fast with a higher weight with a greater weight so then when i took them off i would be blazing it never really

worked though the worst thing that i could do in an actual race when it was time to compete against other runners was to run with the ankle weights on i had to make a deliberate conscious decision to take the weights off of my ankles if i wanted to run as best as i could and endure to the end i had to take them off i had to shed the weight and that is the idea that the author has in mind here by laying aside every weight it is the presence of habits in our lives that impede us from effectively running thus the problem with the

weight isn't in what it is the problem with the weight isn't what it does often these are good things that become god things these are good things that we give the wrong priority these are good things that we often time don't realize are distracting us from the best thing case in point how many of you in here on a smartphone raise your hand if you don't own a smartphone what do you own it has been said that the average smartphone user touches their smartphone on a daily basis 2617 times that is an insane amount of times to touch your smartphone phone in a day here's

a question what would our ability be like to endure in our race in the midst of suffering if the gospel touched our minds just as much as we touched our phones on a daily basis so convicting to me so here's another one what about this overwhelming amount that we invest in the work that we do because of this demand for production or because we feel like all of who we are all of what matters in life is bound up in what we produce and our identity is so attached to our performance we're getting an a-plus in our jobs but a d-minus as an apprentice to

jesus because we're neglecting the necessary things to cultivate christ's likeness in us what would our lives be like what would our ability be like to endure our race in the midst of suffering if we view jesus just was more necessary as we do our jobs and you all are mature enough and smart enough to know that i am not bashing the use of smartphones i have one you all know that i am not saying you should not work hard at your jobs and if because if you aren't that is extremely problematic but as i mentioned when good things begin to distract us from the best

thing it can hurt us in our race especially when we are met with adversity so we have to lay down the weights but not only that we also have to lay down the sin which is the second distraction that the author mentions here we know that sin is anything that we do rebellion and disobedience to god and where sin is present in our lives we have to deliberately and diligently fight to get rid of it in the words of that old puritan writer john owens if we are not killing sin sin will be killing us if you're not putting to death the sin of sexual

promiscuity it will be sucking the life out of you if you are not opposing the sin of laziness and self-indulgence it will be opposing you spiritually if you are not resisting the sin of pride and arrogance it will be destroying you if you are not combating this attitude of thinking that oh we we all sin right i mean god is gracious god is merciful it's not that big of a deal can i guarantee you it will be wrecking your life and it's only a matter of time if you hung around me long enough you would quickly find out that one of my favorite sitcoms of

all time from the 1990s is a sitcom called martin starring actor and comedian martin lawrence do you all know who he is please tell me you know who he is i see my sister second ahead i need you to go youtube this show after the show after this service all right but no martin was my favorite sitcom growing up that's where i got a lot of my humor from which is pretty dry i know um but martin in the sitcom he played a variety of different actors and my favorite character was a guy by the name of old otis old otis was an out of

shape elderly security guard but what people didn't know about otis is he could take down just about anybody who stepped to him you wouldn't know that by looking at him i wish i had a picture i didn't submit a picture i wish i had one go youtube old otis after this okay for a good laugh but all the otis could take down anybody who stepped to him and there's this one particular scene where otis is a security guard at a bank and this bodybuilder gets into it with him and he then challenges old otis to a fight he looks at him and he says you

want some of this old man and in the classic old oldest voice he looks at him he says look here boy i want all of that though boy go on put it down go and put it right there so they lock hands like this and then otis begins to say oh oh this is going to take you down boy oh oh that's going to take you down and he starts to pull this bodybuilder down to the ground and all of a sudden otis just kind of i mean he just like demolishes this dude i promise you i have a point to this this scene in

martin reminds me of how so many of us oftentimes treat sin in our lives we look sin in the face as though it's weak as though it's useless in nothing and we can handle it on our own we treat it as if it's not bigger than us and that we have the strength to overcome it but here's the thing you entertain it enough eventually the gravitational pull of it will grip you so powerfully that it begins to pull you down to destruction and before you know it it is costing you more than you want to pay it is keeping you longer than you want to

stay and it is taking you farther than you want to go sin has to be laid down if we are going to endure in our race in the midst of suffering because if not it's going to make it that much more complicated but the question is how do we kill it how do we lay aside the weight how do we kill the sin and lay it aside must look to jesus here's our only hope look around you're not alone lay it down the distractions are hurting you but look to jesus he's your only hope look with me at the verse the rest of verses one

through three he says 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 endure the cross despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of god consider him or look to him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted other translations use the language of fix your eyes on jesus peer at jesus look to jesus gaze upon jesus and notice that that is where the author the only place the author

tells us to fix our eyes or to consider in other words yes remember those who have run who have run before you and who are running with you look around but that is insufficient in and of itself yes lay aside the weights and the sins but that is impossible without a steady robust gazing at jesus christ and his person and work in the gospel paul would even say in titus chapter 2 verses 11 through 12 that the grace of god has appeared bringing salvation for all people and training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled and upright and godly lives in

this present age the grace of god that has appeared to us bringing us salvation and training us to deny sin is the gospel of jesus christ which means that we are not only saved by the gospel we are sanctified through the gospel that when we are peering at jesus in the gospel when we are fixing our eyes on jesus in the gospel the spirit of god begins to take the word of god and begins to transform the hearts of god's people making us more like jesus christ and this echoes the words of jesus in john 6 35 when he says i am the bread of

life he who comes to me will never hunger and he who believes in me will never thirst i love what one author says here about this verse he says this verse in his literal translation is a continual coming to christ and a continual believing in christ so that as we perpetually feast on jesus christ and all his blessings in the gospel our hunger for sin diminishes and the lies of sin simply simply begin to lose their appeal therefore the degree to which we are looking to jesus and the degree to which we are appearing at jesus in the gospel and the degree to which we

are full on christ in the gospel will be the degree to which we experience the power and the ability to lay aside the weights and the sins that so easily entangles us because of who jesus is and what jesus has done will gradually become so much more satisfying than the appeal of weights and sins that oftentimes hinder us you see where we look as we run matters just like a runner cannot afford to run looking at his feet or it will slow him down or just like a runner cannot afford looking behind him as he runs because it will slow him down we cannot afford

to not have our gaze fixed on jesus christ for he alone is the founder and perfecter of our faith he alone is the basis upon which our faith stands and the one whom our faith is all about he alone is the preeminent motivation and the preeminent model that finished the race and even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death and even though i have walked through the valley of four miscarriages and even though i have walked through the valley of my wife losing her hearing and even though you are walking through the valley of discouragement and despair and loneliness even though

you do that oh there is a god that when you consider him he is a god that when you remember him holy reminds you that he endured the hostility of sinners and he endured the totality of god's wrath for the joy of being seated in eternity in his rightful position and for the joy of redeeming you and i and when you consider that even in your valley of the shadow of death oh church i can't help but continue keeping on i can't help but continue lifting my eyes to eternity i can't help but keep my eyes on the prize of jesus christ i can't help

but keep hope alive that one day a change is going to come because if jesus endured for the joy that was set before and his joy wasn't in vain your joy is not in vain either church that you can remember and even in the midst of your suffering even in the midst of your pain even in the midst of you enduring against adversity and affliction there's a god who ran before you and there's a god who has finished the race and i know that that is hard sometimes to fathom i know that that is hard sometimes in the midst of your suffering to remember but

can i encourage you from this final descent as i land here can i encourage you to think back to the story of derrick that i mentioned in the beginning oh the greatest part of that story for me is not that derek actually hobbled his way to the end the most compelling part of that story is that his daddy his father came running out of the crowd to help him get there yeah we need to lay aside the weights and the sins and yes we need to look around and remember but we need to remember that as we fix our eyes on jesus we need to

remember the promise that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of rejection redemption and if derek's earthly father loved him enough to make his way through a crowd to help him get to the finish line and how much more your father has not gone leaping over mountains and bounding over heels and calling you by name to make sure that you finish this race oh church that is the hope that we have the resting place is not our love for him but his love for us it is not the perfection of our faith it is the perfection

of the one who is faithful and even when my faith may fail christ is going to hold me fast and even if the tempter would prevail christ will hold you fast he will not let your soul be lost bought by him at such a cost christ and christ alone is going to hold you fast in church you got to remember that hope in the midst of your race look to him fix your eyes on them he loves you let us pray father we are helpless without your helping hand and so father we humbly confess that we are weak you know our frame that we are

but dust god but you also who are god who oppose us you are the keeper of your people you have promised that you are able to present a spotless before the presence of your great glory that day of redemption lord and so father i pray that as we look to you you would help us to remember that god that you would deepen the roots of those promises in our hearts that we might endure god help us to remember that we are not alone god that the christian race is not an impossible race god the saints from every era and every generation have finished god but

they didn't finish on their own god they finished with the help of their savior so god we pray that you'd help us god help us to finish the race to fight the good fight of faith god to hear the words well done my good and faithful servant in jesus name amen six and uh as jesus says you must eat my flesh and drink my blood uh the disciples that were there all